Year 7, Day 223: Luke 14

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Luke 14 is truly all about following Jesus.  I’m sorry if that sentence sounded like something Captain Obvious might have said.  Perhaps I should say that this chapter is truly about the cost of discipleship.

Naturally, we have a section in this chapter entitled the cost of discipleship.  What this section is all about is making sure that we understand what discipleship will cost.  Jesus tells us that before we set out on the journey we need to stop and ask if we have what it takes to stick with it and finish the task.  It’s just as bad to start following Jesus and then turn away as it is to never start at all.

However, there is more cost than just our inner drive.  Look at what Jesus talks about in terms of our own opinion of ourselves.  Jesus tells us in public that we should sit at the lower places.  In other words, we are to have humble opinions of ourselves.  That doesn’t mean that we can’t have a healthy self-image, it just means that we need to be willing to the think of others and ourselves.  Besides, when we are humble we will either be affirmed in our current place or even elevated.  If we aren’t willing to follow Jesus in humility, we have every chance at finding ourselves lessened in the eyes of others.

There is also the teaching about whom to invite.  As a follower of Jesus, we need to look within people rather at their exterior.  Do you see that when the master of the feast is ready to feast he cares more about inviting people who want to be there – regardless of their station in life – than he cares about inviting people of high status?  That’s part of the cost of discipleship.  We must be willing to go where God wants, do what He wants, and minister with whom He wants.  It isn’t about trying to be with the elite or the put together.  It is about walking through the doors that God has opened so we can be with the people who are desiring to be with God, too.

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