As American Christians, we have a tendency to see Jesus as either a means to an end (he can make me happy), or we just add him into our list of weekly routines. I am afraid we do not know much about actually following Jesus.
In Matthew 8:18-22 Jesus has performed incredible miracles, so you can imagine that the group following him has grown quote large. Matthew recounts two occurences where Jesus shows that following him requires something from us.
To the scribe he says: Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. When we say we are following Jesus, are we following him with everything, including those things that we consider essentials? Or have we bought into our consumer driven society so much that we will follow God but would not consider giving up our house? God calls us to follow him, with everything included. Job, house, cars, finances, retirement. Are we willing to give these things over to God? We are not all called to lives of foreign missions or poverty, but we are called to give God everything and serve him with everything we have.
To the disciple who wants to bury his father Jesus says: Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead. Some commentators show that the father was not actually dead, but that the man wanted to stay with him until the end of his life. Regardless, everything we do, even if they are good things, have the potential to take our eyes off of following Jesus with our whole hearts. Do you know that your children or parents can be idols? Anything we put before following Christ is an idol.
So what do we do? We need to correct our thinking. Rather than adding God into our lives at the end of the other activities, we need to make Jesus first and do everything to glorify him. This is the point Jesus is making in this passage. Nothing comes before him.
Peace,
Jeff Moody
jeffmoody82@gmail.com
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