Following Jesus and Navigating Family Part II
- Randy Nash
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
Announcement: One of the reasons I have been posting so seldom of late is because of the work we have putting in on the development of a mobile app for Kingdomstreams. A wonderful company call UpCode has been helping me with this and they tell me we are getting close to it being live. Stay tuned for more announcements on this.
"The messengers of Jesus will be hated to the end of time. They will be blamed for all the division which rend cities and homes. Jesus and His disciples will be condemned on all sides for undermining family life, and for leading the nation astray; they will be called crazy fanatics and disturbers of the peace. The disciples will be sorely tempted to desert their Lord. But the end is also near, and they must hold on and persevere until it comes. Only He will be blessed who remains loyal to Jesus and His word until the end." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "The Cost of Discipleship"
I trust you had a glorious Easter weekend as you joined others around the world in worshipping our risen Savior and Lord Jesus Christ. He is so worthy of our praise and our utmost devotion. The more we lay down our lives for Him, the more we experience Him and share in His glory. The evil one knows that well, and he is constantly trying to deter, distract and discourage us from following Jesus as the Lord and Master that He is.
One of the ways the evil one carries out his evil and cunning work is by causing us to elevate our sense of responsibility to family, and/or by causing us to look to them for more in this earthly life than they were ever meant to give us. That brings us to our next passage where Jesus – knowing this – is quick to expose such thinking for what it is. First the declaration of intended devotion by another would be disciple of Jesus, “Another also said, "I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home." - Luke 9:61 Jesus responded firmly and perhaps shockingly to some, “…No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62 In other words, let them be. They are not who or what you think they are. And you do not appear to realize who you are talking to. No family or extended family member ever deserves to be “first” in our thinking. Only Jesus deserves to be “first”.
Jesus, the king of the kingdom of God is not just any old king. He is the eternal living God. He rules over everything that is - having created everything that is. He has unbelievable plans for your life and wants to bless you beyond what you can imagine. But your life is fickle. It is as a vapor – here one minute and gone the next. Your heart is “..deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” (Jeremiah 17:9). It can turn on a dime. One minute loving and wanting to follow Jesus. The next minute willing to give that up to try to gain or preserve acceptance or peace with a family member. If we are to truly follow Him, He must be allowed to call the shots because only He can see what needs to be seen and knows what needs to be known regarding our lives and our relationships with family.
One of the reasons James and John became such amazing disciples and apostles is because when Jesus called them to follow Him, they were willing right then to leave their father, their future careers and income, and follow Him fully. “Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.” Matthew 4:22 While we are not told any more details, rare is the father/owner of a business, who does not increasingly hope his sons will have his heart for the family business and take it over so he can slow down and maybe even retire. To see them both just walk off and leave it to him had to be disheartening, perhaps even crushing. But they somehow knew Jesus was worthy of their full and immediate devotion and undivided response. And they trusted God to care for their father. One of the reasons Abraham became such a friend of God and an example of great faith to us is because he obeyed God when God told him to, “..Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house to the land which I will show you.” Genesis 12:1
All children (even adult children) have an innate God given desire to please their fathers. Psychologists have written about how even children who have been abused by their fathers still have this desire. Knowing that and knowing how sin and Satan and this sick world system that he devised can twist this into an inordinate compulsion, Jesus quickly got to the heart of things with the growing crowds of people who were following Him. Let’s listen in, “Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.” "Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”- Luke 14:25-27 I can imagine that many in these crowds of people gasped in shock at such a statement. He started off with the relationship and sense of commitment would be followers have with their fathers, but He didn’t stop with that. He then went on to include our relationships with our mothers, wives, children and siblings in this warning. It stands to reason this would apply to grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.
What does it mean to hate one or all of our family members? Well it means in any and every circumstance, when Jesus’s will, way, call to us conflicts with our family members’ will, way, call, expectations, etc., we side with Jesus regardless of the cost or consequence with such.
Obviously Jesus does not want us to literally hate our family members. His call to all His disciples to honor our father and mother per the 5th commandment in Exodus 20:12 stands as long as our parents are alive (See Matthew 15:4). To honor them is one thing; to allow their expectations and demands and wishes to interfere with our daily obedience to King Jesus is quite another.
Concluding Observations:
1. We must stay tender and merciful towards family members who malign and reject us. Jesus commanded His disciples as recorded in Luke 6:27, 28, “…love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” Chances for breakthrough with family fractures are far greater when we do what Jesus commanded us to do.
2. When family members reject and persecute and malign us for our pursuit of Christ and His kingdom and righteousness, it is important to realize that ultimately “…our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness…” Ephesians 6:12 Let’s make sure we fight these spiritual battles with spiritual weapons.
3. When we choose to follow Christ and thus have to lay down certain family relationships, it is important to remember Peter's discussion with Jesus on this as found in Mark 10:28-31. Very encouraging promise in this passage from Jesus.
One of the ways Jesus has sought to comfort and strengthen us when going through the pain and sorrow of fractures in family relationships due to our pursuit of Him is by giving us a fresh appreciation for spiritual family. See His example and words in Matthew 12:46-50
I don’t want to minimize the very real pain and grief some of you are experiencing at the hands of your family/extended family because of your devotion to Christ. But very few of us in the States are experiencing this to the awful extent our brothers and sisters in other nations are experiencing it. My wife and I have a Voice of the Martyrs Calendar up in our Master bathroom with a prayer request for each day of the year for some of the most persecuted believers out there. It has greatly helped our perspective in this regard. A typical request is the one for April 26th in Nepal, “Pray for Bindu and her three daughters. Bindu’’s husband abandoned them after they placed their faith in Christ.” These people need our prayers and we highly recommend praying through these calendars. You can find them via www.vom.org
6. Some time back I sought to find and study every reference Jesus made in the gospels to marriage or family. If you want to see those studies/articles you can find them per the links below:
God bless each of you readers; and if you are experiencing rejection and persecution from family members, may He comfort you and may He give you great grace to endure these trials and to trust Him to do what only He can do in these situations.
“[Jesus] stands between us and God, and for that very reason he stands between us and all other men and things. ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
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