Your gut response (probably) and mine, to this question is likely to sound like this: "sin, evil, meanness, hatred, murder, jealousy, pride, stealing, adultery, betrayal, etc etc."
Check out what Jesus says in Luke, Chapter 14, verse 26:
“If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison—your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple."
Whoa. Not exactly what I expected. Or is it?
Do you think that Jesus...the very definition of Love, sacrifice, forgiveness and grace...would truly ask us as His followers to HATE our families, even ourselves? Is this a massive contradiction?
Or is He asking us to hate anything...ANYTHING that would stifle or compete with our affections for HIM? God sacrificed EVERYTHING He had through Jesus Christ with an all-consuming passion! It wasn't a non-chalant, obligatory move of strategery on His part. It cost Him EVERYTHING. We receive His forgiveness, Love, Grace, mercy, faithfulness for FREE...only because of the sacrifice, paid for in blood, by Jesus.
What do you have an all-consuming passion about? Is it weightier to you than knowing Jesus, and being His? This passage calls us, not to hate our families, but to hate anything that would diminish our all-consuming passion for Christ.
What stirs your affections for Christ? What diminishes it?
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