Luke 14:25-33 (NASB)
Discipleship Tested
25 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, 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. 27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. 28 For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”
There will be a grand wedding in Heaven, the marriage of Christ, the Lamb and the Church, His Wife. This was foretold giving us instruction to heed for into that very big event in Revelations 21:9. Ephesians 5: 22-33 says, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives ought to be to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the WORD, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we are members of His body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.”
The passage implies that the church is not just a woman to Christ. A woman is different from a wife. Adam named Eve as a woman at first because Eve was part of his own physical body. Genesis 2: 23 says, “Adam said,
“This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
A wife is very different. A woman will become a wife after she entered into a marriage that is bound by this divine instruction; “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24). The wife, however, was instructed to submitting to her husband. (Genesis 3:16)
From there, we could say, a woman became a wife because she is not now only a part of a man in the flesh but because of her role to her husband. And her role is to submit to her husband and became her head. That is the plan of GOD since the beginning and bound to fulfillment in the eternal age to come.
In our Gospel today, Jesus summoned His disciples to hate their families as He taught them how to enter into the marriage of Him and them as His Church. The ‘hate’ word was used to let His disciples know how great is the requirement to become His follower. It is like what He said in Luke 9:23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” The common hindrance to serving GOD is our love for our family. We deny our calling to serve GOD because of our family. But few do not know that if they leave their family for the sake of GOD, GOD would be the one who will take care of the very needs of their family, the needs that are not only physical but most especially the spiritual.
Becoming a Christian starts in the Baptism of Repentance but should also go through in the Baptism in the Spirit. It means submission to every word that Jesus had spoken and the meditation of these words day and night that will lead us to detach ourselves from this world and be holy ones for Christ. Again, a wife of Christ must submit to every word He spoken to become holy. That is when we are tested to have faith in Him and fully trust Him and not on our understanding.
But why is so hard this requirement to be a wife to Jesus? Luke 18:28-30 has the answer. “Peter said, “Behold, we have left our own homes and followed You.” And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Before our family, we have to love Jesus first because He first loved us (I John 4:19). Don’t make GOD jealous as HE is a jealous GOD (Exodus 20:5). 2 Corinthians 11:2 says, we are betrothed to one husband, Christ.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we must understand that Jesus is looking for his followers to be His wife, so submission to all His requirement is necessary for us to become His wife. All requirements is written in the Gospel, so embrace it and have time to meditate on His words. AMEN
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