Being Intentional

 

"Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."    Luke 14:27 (ESV) Jesus came to bear a cross. He came to serve, not be served. He came to live as an example for us so that we could see what it looks like to live in this broken world as one who is one with God. Jesus created and sustains life, and he knew how one should live in order to be successful in life. He lived a life of giving, caring, and teaching, or, in summary, a life of love, where others’ needs were more important than His wants. Jesus saw the ready harvest and was working it every day. He was not moved by political power, corruption, or influenced by money or societal norms. Being like Jesus is a lifelong goal of the wise, and it will not happen by accident.

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How To Love The World

 

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “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 14:25-26 (ESV) If we love people or things more than God there will be grave consequences in the world. T. Boston once wrote about why it is critical that we love God above all. He said this: “Because, if it were not so, Christ would have no Church in the world. If imprisoning, banishing, spoiling of goods, fields and scaffolds reeking with the blood of the saints, would have deterred all persons from following Christ, there had been no Church in the world this day. But God will have a Church in spite of devils and wicked men.” Loving God first and foremost allows us to love others as we should.

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Holding It Together

 

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “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 14:25-26 (ESV) “While discussing this passage one day, I noticed that a beam of sunlight had fallen upon the mass of glowing coal in the grate, and where the sunlight fell the bright redness was turned into absolute blackness. “Ah!” thought I, “there is the meaning of this passage.” As the glowing coal appears black beneath the far more intense light of the sun, so Christ asks that the light of our love for Him should be so intense as to render our earthly loves even as hatreds in comparison. In reality, although the red coal appears black under the sunlight, it is still as hot as before, yea, hotter than before, because of the added heat from the sun; so our love for friends and relatives, though it should appear as hatred beneath our love for Christ, will not be quenched by it, but added to, and rendered deeper and purer.” (H. Stanley.) The one relationship that holds all other relationships together is our relationship with God.

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Acceptable Attacks

 

But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’    Luke 14:16-20 (ESV) We all have our “reasons” for what we do. Some reasons are really excuses wrapped as a reason. Many times we weigh out what is most important to us, and do whatever we can to make sure our response sheds the best possible light on our decision. Often, the urgent diminishes the importance of the important. It is the experienced and skilled laborer who can see through the urgent, and arrange his/her priorities to meet the challenges of the important. The characters in this passage who missed out on the banquet were not characterized as evil. The tasks they were doing were not bad. However, it was obvious that their priorities in life were going to keep them from experiencing what was best. Satan always attacks us in ways we find acceptable, and the more he can paint a beautiful picture of evil, one that we will accept as beautiful, the easier time he has unraveling our lives.

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Loving and helping people is natural for those who live in reality.

 

He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”    Luke 14:12-14 (ESV) Loving and helping people is natural for those who live in reality. Jesus did not come to this earth because it benefited Him. He did not die on the cross or rise from the dead because He needed to do so to prove Himself. He did not extend His mercy and grace to us because He needed us. In fact, God has never needed us to accomplish His purpose, and as He came to die for us, He did so without receiving a benefit to Himself. I often encourage young people to seek advice from a Godly older person who has no way to benefit from whatever decision they eventually make. I encourage older Christians to help those who come to them without regard to what they might receive from it. Those who love are motivated by what is best for the other person.  There really should be no other motivation.

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Nothing To Prove

 

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”    Luke 14:7-11 (ESV) Those who hold an honorable position need not try and prove their significance. Those who understand the purposes of God live in a way that points to Him and others, not themselves. As children of the King, whom the King formed (knit together), we have nothing in this life to prove, and see death as the gateway to everlasting life. If we spend our time and effort trying to prove something that already is evident, we will live “awkward” lives. It is always best to live in the context of reality, even if those around us have no idea of what reality looks like.

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Control? Manipulation?

 

And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” And they could not reply to these things.   Luke 14:3-6 (ESV) Trying to “catch” someone or trick someone into saying something that can be misconstrued is not trying to find the truth. Plotting to find, use, and distort what is said is not trying to find the truth. Controlling information, manipulating information, and adding or subtracting key bits of information is not trying to find the truth. The lawyers and Pharisees here were not seeking truth. They were seeking to destroy Jesus’s credibility. This effort in and of itself disqualifies them for any credible leadership position.

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