Read Luke 14:25-33 with your family.

Jesus had two types of followers: those he chose or who chose him early in his ministry, and those who had heard about Jesus’ reputation and wanted to be close to see what Jesus would do next. This second group of people were the ones Jesus was talking to in this story.

He knew a lot of people wanted to hang around to see him perform miracles, but they really didn’t understand in their hearts or heads what it meant to be Jesus’ follower. These were not the people who Jesus camped with and talked with late at night. These people went home and carried on with their lives after seeing Jesus. Very few of them experienced a true desire to follow Jesus through the bad times as well as the good.

In this story Jesus tries to explain it to them that they have to turn away (the word in the Bible is ‘hate’, but it was used a bit differently in Jesus time that in is today) from the pull and comfort of their family and choose a very difficult path. They had to really think long and hard about what it would cost them to truly follow Jesus, because it might mean their death. In Roman occupied Palestine, that was a very real possibility. Were they prepared to do that? That is what Jesus challenged them to think about.

Even today, though most Christians want to live the life Jesus asked us to live by being kind to others and trying to make the world a better place, very few Christians feel the strong pull to leave everything they know and do their ministry in a place far from home, a place where they might die.