There's a great cost to following the Lord Jesus Christ. While some of us may not understand it, the ultimate cost of following Him is our very lives. The Lord Jesus Himself said in Matthew 16:24-25,

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

Following Christ will require us all to deny ourselves. It will require us to take up our crosses. Lastly, it will require us to look at Christ and follow Him whatever He tells us to do and go to.

In Luke 14:25-26, however, we find Jesus giving us another thing that we must do in order to truly follow Him:

"Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.""

Did Jesus mean what He said? Does He really want me to hate my family so I can follow Him?

Let's talk about that.

Received wrongly

The pursuit of Christ is the most demanding of all pursuits in this life. It will require all that we were, all that we are, and all that we will be. It will demand our time, our energy, our attention, our resources, our everything. It's that demanding.

The Lord's command in Luke 14:26, however, sounds really extreme - that we would need to hate the very family He gave us in order to follow Him. It is here that we are presented with a tough decision-making moment. Why is that?

If we take His words literally, we will actually disobey the Bible. 1 John 3:15 tells us, "Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." If we don't hate our family, on the other hand, He says we won't be able to follow Him. What do we do?

Well, we take a look at the context of how Jesus lived.

What Jesus' own earthly life shows

• First, we read in Luke 2:41-52 that when Jesus was twelve, He already knew that He came to earth for. Still, He went home with His earthly parents Joseph and Mary "and was subject to them" (see verse 52). He did not break God's command to honor father and mother.
• Second, we know that He took responsibility for His earthly mother, even entrusting her into the care of His disciple while He hung on the cross (see John 19:26). Scholars believe that Joseph was already gone by this time, and so Jesus was the one taking care of Mary. He did it until His death.
• Lastly, Luke 4:38-40 gives us an account where Jesus heals Peter's mother-in-law. This is the same Peter who became His follower, and soon a leader in the early church.

If Christ really wanted us to hate our families so we can "follow" Him, He would've modeled it for us; but no, He didn't. What He meant to say was,

I go before your families. You prioritize Me above them, and them only next to Me.

In closing

Friends, Jesus wants us to follow Him and prioritize Him above any relationship that we have, especially the closest and most important relationships we have with our families. We will do well to give the best of our time to praying and reading the Bible, then spending time with our loved ones next.