Thursday Thought -- June 2, 2011

Good Morning Friends,

“As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’ He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’ But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’” (Luke 9:57-62)

Jesus presents some hard situations in this story. They strike at some of the most basic questions that are involved in following Jesus.

Will you follow Jesus even if it is not comfortable? Jesus wasn’t offering a comfortable place to stay and an easy path when He invited people to follow Him. Jesus’ own life was not comfortable and His own path was not easy. Why should we expect that what He calls us to will be different from what He Himself experienced? In fact, Jesus’ path led Him to a cross. Will you follow Jesus even if the path He calls you to leads to a cross, too?

Will you follow Jesus even if it is not convenient? The second man seemed to have a legitimate excuse for delaying a decision to follow Jesus – he wanted to bury his father. But most scholars believe the man’s father wasn’t even dead, yet. The man was just asking Jesus for a more convenient time to follow Him. There are many things that seem so important to us – too important to interrupt to follow Jesus – school, family, career, pleasures, etc. But should anything be more important to us than following Jesus?

Will you continue to follow Jesus no matter what, or will you turn aside for one reason or another? The decision to follow Jesus is to be a lifetime decision. It’s not a decision that is to be picked up and set aside whenever and for whatever reason we want to. Make the decision and it should dominate the rest of your life. Does your decision to follow Jesus still dominate your life?

The basic question Jesus was asking in this story is … Are you serious about following Jesus … or are you just playing at it?

His, by Grace,

Steve