by
Gordon MacDonald for Generous Giving
|
Then a teacher of the law came to [Jesus] and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Matthew 8:19-22
It is often said that Jesus never accepted volunteers into his inner circle. They were all recruited, chosen. Here is a story, briefly told (also told in Luke 9:57), of some men who thought they were putting their best foot forward when they offered themselves.
In both cases Jesus made it clear that they were not ready. If you take the words of Jesus and think them through, you get a sense of the sorts of things Jesus saw in the hearts of these men that no one else would have been able to see.
The first man probably had a problem with creature comforts, with things. Jesus' comment to him revealed the bottom line: I don’t have anything; I’m not making anything; and no one is getting rich by coming alongside of me. If this man had any ideas about benefiting financially from this association, they were immediately done away with.
Even today, more than a few “followers” of the Lord harbor thoughts of what they can get out of the association: if not money, perhaps prestige, respect, social standing. Others might quietly reason, If I’m faithful to God, he’ll be faithful to me, financially. My career will take off, my wallet will thicken, my net worth will increase. Think again!
“We follow a crucified and stripped Savior,” a noble Christ-follower once wrote. A servant is not greater than his master. Bottom line: we do not follow Christ with the profit motive in mind.
The second would-be disciple had priority problems. And so Jesus responded accordingly: If you are going to worry about all the normal routines and customs of life, then you’re probably not cut out for the tasks of kingdom-building that are just ahead.
A harsh response, some might say. But this is typical of the Lord. To those who are privileged and comfortable, He always manages to raise the bar a little bit higher. He desires to test the heart to see if money, things, privileges, and comforts are really in charge. You can’t serve the Savior and all that stuff on an equal footing. One has to take precedence. And until you decide, you can’t be a disciple.
© Generous Giving, 2002. Used by permission of Generous Giving. All rights reserved.
Generous Giving is an educational stewardship ministry that seeks to encourage givers of all income levels—as well as ministry leaders, pastors and teachers and professional advisors—to fully understand and embrace what it means to live generously, according to God’s word and Christ’s example.
|
