Test of Self Love, Counting the Cost of Discipleship

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

We will fail to be a disciple of Jesus Christ if we stop at ’Jesus loves me this I know’. The context of what Jesus spoke on following Him concerns the issue of love, as with a woman forsaking all others and be betrothed to one and only. As much as we cannot serve two masters (Luke 6:13) we can only can call One Lord. Jesus hits the nailed on the issue of discipleship with regard to the first and great commandment (Matt 28:38). If we miscomprehend the context of ‘hate’ than the disciple will be deprived of joy of the Lord and in the process living life judging everything and everyone, picking the speck out of people’s eyes, joylessly murmuring ‘I am carrying my cross, where is yours?’ Carrying the cross involves having joy that we have a glorious hope that does not disappoint (Heb 12:2). Jesus is asking us if we counted the cost in being His disciple in relation to everything else especially that where self has a stake.

The next statement is about taking up the cross, the requirement of discipleship. Everything that doesn’t bear the cross carrying Christ nature must be laid down. The cross is firstly about God’s good and secondly the grace to esteem (hold in high regard) others above self (Php 2:3). True Godly love concerns others; the converse is to lust which revolves around self. There is always joy to build up and not tear down. The attitude is be filled with joy even if there is a need to suffer for His and others sake (Col 1:24). We know that we are carrying the cross when there is genuine self denying love for the Lord and others. Self will dies and His will is being worked out. This is how the early apostles lived, suffered and died, the same path the Master Himself took. Much today concerns self good, including self righteousness; ‘how I am better than my lesser brethren’. The cost need to be counted, self love and self will must be eradicated from the equation and His glorious and eternal will becomes manifested in and through His body, the church that we may attain to the resurrection from the dead (Php 3:11).