Reflection
Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:33
Family and possessions: the two things Jesus now says you have to give up. God’s people are being redefined, and these identity markers won’t matter anymore. Cling onto them, and you’ll be like people keeping the curtains closed when the sun has risen. That was night-time; this is daytime. Jesus’ challenge, then, comes to all of us at the point where we are tempted to settle down and be comfortable with the way things are. ‘No,’ he says, ‘that would be like someone wanting to build a tower, or fight a battle, without thinking out what’s involved.’ You need to think through, to pray through, what it’s going to mean to be a follower, a learner, a disciple. You don’t want to be left high and dry when God’s kingdom goes forward and you turn out to have settled for something less.
N. T. Wright
Prayer
Come follow me.
Action
Reflect on what you see as the cost of discipleship in your life. How does it match the expectation expressed by Jesus?
Suggested Reading
Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:33
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another
John 13:34–35
Our life must be centered on what is essential, on Jesus Christ. Everything else is secondary.
Pope Francis.
Above all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.
Francis of Assisi
A disciple of Jesus Christ is a visible verbal follower of Jesus Christ at the expense of the ones and things that they hold dear. It’s that serious.
Kingsley Opuwari Manuel
To follow Jesus is to be a wholemaker, essentially to love the world into new being and life.
Ilia delio
The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians but aren’t actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to Jesus to get all the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.
Kyle Idleman
When I say I trust Jesus, that is what I mean: I trust that the way of life leads through perishability, not around it.
Barbara Brown Taylor
It is very easy to build churches in which seekers congregate; it is very hard to build churches in which biblical faith is maturing into genuine discipleship.
David Wells
Be not anxious! Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of all anxiety.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer