Commitment Spoken by Jesus

   Jesus did not mince words when He spoke about the commitment it would take to follow Him.  As He told the apostles, if you want to follow Him, you will have to essentially lay down what you want and be willing to obediently follow the Holy Spirit’s leading.  That includes being willing to suffer for Jesus (Luke 9:23-27).

   This statement came right after Jesus telling His apostles that He would suffer and die but rise again (verse 22).  Perhaps all the apostles at that time were hoping Jesus would be the one to lead the overthrow of the Roman government so that the Jews could go back to ruling themselves.  Jesus shattered those dreams. 

   Sometime later when others wanted to follow Jesus (Luke 9:57-62), conditions were placed upon their willingness to follow and Jesus immediately laid down the rules that if there were any conditions, He would be the One setting them.  I am so glad Jesus did not take into account the conditions I indicated when I said I would follow in serving Him in ministry.  Very quickly I figured out who was in control even though there are still times when I know that He is inviting me to serve Him some way that I lay down some conditions yet.  Verbally we do not tell Jesus that it has to be our way but when we are not obedient to His leading, we are showing by our example exactly that.

   Jesus never said following Him would be easy.  To b ...