Today’s reading is Luke 14: 25-35

Today we read one of those passages that make us scratch our head and say, huh?  Wait, what?  Jesus tells us to hate our parents and our family? That doesn’t seem right. This is where understanding the whole of scripture is important.  Jesus isn’t telling us to “hate” our family.  Go to the cross.  What is one of the last things that we see Jesus do?  Ensure that His mother will be taken care of.  Jesus is a good son.  He loves His mother.  Don’t think that is what He is saying.

So, then, what is He saying.  This is what.  As much as you love your mother, your father, your family, your friends, all of these relationships, you must love me more.  Jesus is saying that He must have first place in everything in our lives.  He must come first, even ahead of family.

In our context, here in American, were family and faith are so closely linked, that that doesn’t make much sense. But there are places in the world, today, where if one were to confess Christ as savior, to their family, the would be dead. That’s hard to imagine. Hard to think about. Hard to understand.  But, it is true.

Jesus is saying for us, we must be willing to choose Him, over everything, no matter how hard it may be.

Because only He is life and truth.

Today, may we love all. But may Jesus always be our first love.

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