I need to clarify that, in no way, was Jesus denying His responsibility to His earthly family. In Matthew 15:19, He criticized the religious leaders for not following the Old Testament command to honor their parents. At the cross, you’ll recall, He provided for His mother’s care after He was gone by entrusting her to His best friend, John. He would have agreed with the apostle Paul—and, in fact, does agree—when he wrote to Timothy, “If anyone does not take care of his own relatives, especially his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8).
The question is not whether we should love our families. Of course, we’re to love our families! The confusion comes in how we should love our families. Jesus made a statement on another occasion that’s relevant to this discussion…put your seatbelts on, though. 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.” Matthew put it a bit milder in His gospel and captures the idea more, I believe. Matthew 10:37—“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”
When Jesus used the word “hate,” he wasn’t saying what you and I think of when we hear the word “hate.” Hatred, in our understanding, is an “active hostility.” It wishes ill to fall upon the other person. That is not what Jesus was saying! The word Jesus used means something like “to love less.” So, He was saying, “If anyone comes to Me and doesn’t love his family and himself less than Me can’t be my disciple”…or, as Matthew put it—“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.”
HE WAS TALKING ABOUT PRIORITIES. You see, we have to discern the difference between important and all-important. Our families are important, but they’re not all-important.
You’ll remember when Jesus was asked on another occasion what the most important commandment was. What did He say? “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind. And you must love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27). The first and foremost commandment is to love God. Loving others comes after that.
Don’t misunderstand our Lord! These relationships should not be in competition with one another. They should complement one another! C.S. Lewis said it so well in a letter that he wrote many years ago: “When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. Insofar as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving toward the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.”
I ought to be a better husband and father and brother because of my relationship with Christ. Jesus should sweeten every connection and concentric circle in my life!
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