Series Introduction

Jesus never said that if we followed him our lives would be easy, and he never said that nothing bad would ever happen to us, or that he would make us rich. In fact, just the opposite is true, Jesus warned us that the world would hate us for following him.¹

There are several instances in the Bible where Jesus talks about the cost of following him. I’ve decided to write a series of posts entitled “Counting the Cost” where we will examine some of these instances.

As of right now I have four of these articles planned, but this could change. I also don’t have a specific schedule for when these articles will be published. That will depend on the readiness of these articles and the others I am working on.

Hate Your Mother and Father

We will start with Luke 8:19-21:

¹⁹ Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. ²⁰ And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you.” ²¹ But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

In this passage Jesus’ family comes to see him but they can’t get near him. When he is informed of this he tells the crowd basically that they, his followers, are his true family. Clearly Jesus is setting priorities here, putting the will of God above even your closest family.

But the focus of this article, and the verse many people seem to have trouble with, is Luke 14:26:

“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.

From here Jesus goes on to talk about how we must pick up our cross and follow him, however that statement deserves its own post and will be the subject of the next “Counting the Cost” article.

Hung up on Hate

Before we get to the crux of the post we need to touch on the word being translated as “hate” because people sometimes get hung up on Jesus using this word. The word being translated as hate is the Greek word μισέω. According to several sources² this word can also mean to “love less.” This was the sense in which Jesus was using this word. He was using it as a comparative word.

Counting the Cost

We know that Jesus could not possibly have been talking about disobeying the commandment to honor your father and mother so we will continue because Jesus didn’t stop there. Jesus went on to include all close family members and goes so far as to say a person must hate “even his own life.” Jesus was using hyperbole to set priorities.

This gives us a clue as to the level and depth of sacrifice Jesus was talking about.

After saying this, Jesus asked the crowd if any of them would build a tower before counting the cost of the project?³ If a person started to build a tower before counting the cost of building it, and then did not have enough to finish the work the person would look foolish. The person would have laid a foundation, but nothing was built on it.

Likewise, following Jesus comes at a price, and this is what Jesus is warning us about. That price could be the loss of some of your family members or your friends. Your family and friends may not agree with your decision to follow Christ. Or maybe they accept your decision but they don’t want to hear you talk about it.

Maybe they’ve told you to shut up about it, or told you not to push your religion on them. Maybe they’ve not invited you to a party or a cookout because they are afraid you are going to “embarrass” them to their friends with your God-talk.

This is when you have to count the cost.

God or Family

When this happens you have a choice to make between your family and friends or Jesus. It is here that you either love Jesus more than your family and friends or you do not. If you do not love Jesus more than your family then you are not a true disciple.

If you chose your family and friends over Jesus, you will have laid the foundation of faith on bad soil⁴ and will have failed to build on it because you didn’t count the cost of following Jesus.

You must give your life fully to Christ. Christ must be more important than family, friends, and spouses. He must be the most important relationship in your life, while all other relationships become secondary.

And it goes beyond even this, remember he included our own lives in the equation. Not many of us will be called to make a choice between staying alive by denying Christ or dying proclaiming the glory of the Lord, but we must be prepared to do so. We must love Christ more than our own selves.

This does not mean we do not love our families and our friends, and it does not mean we have to literally hate our mothers and fathers. After all, we are called to love even our enemies.⁵ But it does mean we have set our priorities in order. And that means putting our relationship with Christ above all other relationships.

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1. See John 15:18, Matthew 10:22 ↩︎
2. See Moody Bible Commentary, NET Full Notes Study Bible, ESV Study Bible ↩︎
3. Paraphrase of Luke 14:28 ↩︎
4. See Matthew 13:1-9 ↩︎
5. See Matthew 5:43 ↩︎