If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26 NAS95)
I experienced the words of this verse as harsh and demanding. Yes, I placed my confidence in Jesus many moons ago. I knew trusting Jesus in all circumstances held the most promising future for me, even though fear filled me with what that might mean.
I saw words on a page. I didn’t see Jesus in life. Jesus walked among people who preferred other things than God. Yet they felt or experienced Jesus’ presence, the aura of humility, kindness and gentleness that He effused. They noticed Jesus’ single-minded desire and preference for the Father. I didn’t fully understand it earlier, nor do I fully understand it now, but I do know Jesus demonstrated the commitment He asked of people who might follow Him as disciples. Jesus preferred the Father above all else. He knew love and experienced it in full.
The commitment called for seemed radical. I love my parents. Yet God asked for me to leave home, go to a strange land, learn a new tongue, and invite people to know and experience life with Jesus as His disciple. My parents thought insanity had struck. Yet God sustained the choice. I left. My relationship with my parents remained, but not without a growing sense in my soul of what my choice cost them. I learned that along the way as I married, had kids, and raised them…overseas. I could add more, but God met me at each step of preferring Him over something else, especially as I felt the cost to our parents.
God allowed me to prefer Him and live in the tensions of cross-cultural life. Everything flowed from conversation with Him. Most decisions came full of anxiety and with deep concern whether my choices reflected a true preference for Jesus as His disciple over other affections of my heart.
Somewhere along the way, I noticed a deep sense of God’s palpable presence with me arising— not a knowledge about, but a felt presence of Jesus with me, just as He promised. A sense of security, care, and deepening trust in His presence with me grew. He initiates conversation with me that effuse love and acceptance only fitting to Jesus.
Practicing a preference for Jesus as His disciple overwhelmed me with His goodness and love. That commitment to follow Jesus through whatever circumstances transforms my life and experience of God.
For Reflection
“See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity; in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16 NAS95)
- How do your heart affections exert an influence on preferring Jesus in life, and how do you talk to Him about that?
- What do you notice in silence and solitude arising in your heart that challenges your preference for God?
