Friday, February 20, 2009

Today's passage: Matthew 8

This is such an interesting chapter to me. The focus is certainly on the miraculous power of Jesus. In this passage alone, Jesus heals a man with leprosy, heals a servant without even seeing him, heals "many" who were demon-possessed, heals Peter's mother, calms a storm (and a frightened group of disciples), and drives demons out of two possessed men and into pigs! There is no question to the power of God!

It's the one story not involving miracles, however, that I want to focus on today. Tucked away in the middle of the miraculous is a little section my Bible calls "The Cost of Following Jesus", verses 18-22. As you can imagine, these miracles had drawn a crowd. In that crowd were some people that thought they wanted to follow Jesus, but ultimately they didn't understand the cost.

The first was a teacher of the law...someone that had most likely known the scriptures from a very young age. He knew about the coming Messiah and boldly exclaims "I will follow you wherever you go!" It sounds great, right? You would think that Jesus would be excited. But instead he gives this strange answer about foxes and birds. This isn't a rebuke or an encouragement, but more a statement about what it means to follow Jesus. Even foxes and birds have homes...their own place, their own things. But to truly follow Jesus, we must be willing to give up everything if that's what it takes. To be a true disciple, I must be willing to follow wherever He leads, even if that is away from the things that give me security.

The second person has a very reasonable request, or so it would seem to us. We don't know if his father had died or if the man was saying, "When my dad dies, then I'll leave to follow you." Either way, that doesn't seem like a strange request to us. It was a sacred responsibility, especially for the firstborn son, to make sure his father was buried with dignity. But Jesus tells him to let the dead bury their own. Jesus wasn't speaking against this practice, but rather against the idea of saying to Jesus, "I will follow you, but first...." If we truly want to be a disciple, we must be willing to give ourselves completely to Him without restrictions or conditions, and we must not put anything ahead of Him.

We live in a day and age where following Jesus has become conditional when other things are not. We tell our kids they must study for school because it's important (mandatory), but we forget to teach them the Word of God (conditional). We make them get up every morning because they are supposed to be at school but make spiritual education optional. We never miss a practice or rehearsal because we want them to be committed, but we teach that church and Bible study are o.k. to miss for much smaller reasons. We can easily substitute things for us as adults that are givens while discipleship is optional. Discipleship...following Jesus...has become a priority that we shuffle around (often behind the things of the world) when Jesus wants to be THE priority that all others things come after and are filtered through.

For those that read this blog from BCCC, you know me well enough to know that I don't believe any of those examples are evil...there is great value in school and outside activities, and we place such value on them in our own home. My fear is that we are...and are raising...a generation in the church that are the very kinds of disciples that Jesus speaks out against here in Matthew 8. If we are going to follow Him the way He teaches us, we've got to quit counting the costs and follow Him completely.

If Jesus saw my life...your life...today, what would His response be to us? What comes between you and Jesus? What comes between your family and Jesus? What is more important than the Almighty, miracle-working Savior?