“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple.”
– Luke 14:33
What a statement from Jesus to the great crowds around him. He turns to them and says, “If you’re going to stick with me, if you’re going to follow me, you must renounce all that you have.”
Luke 14:33 Calls us to Turn our Backs on Anything that would Oppose our Faith
So I wrote a book that’s being released today, and the title is Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully. The reason I wrote this book is because I am tempted to hold back. I believe we are holding back as the church in our days, specifically in my country, from following Jesus fully. And is evident in division across the church, a lot of people discouraged or disillusioned, maybe even damaged by the church, a next generation that is increasingly disengaging from the church altogether.
I believe the reason why is because we’ve exchanged a biblical gospel that exalts Jesus above everything in the world for an American gospel that prostitutes Jesus for the sake of comfort and power and politics and prosperity in this world. And we need to repent and to follow Jesus into a different future. A future where we’re experiencing the unity Jesus died for us to have, a future where we are turning the tide on centuries of racial division in the church.
Luke 14:33 Calls us to Hold fast to our Convictions
A future where we are holding fast to God’s word with conviction, but we’re doing it with compassion and honor for people around us, especially people who disagree with us. A future where we’re doing justice more than we debate it, future in which we are playing our part, every one of us, in getting the gospel to people who’ve never heard it before. And a future in which we are seeking Jesus with all our hearts, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength as the end of the gospel is the goal of our lives, the prize that we are all longing for.
We just want more of him. And I’m convinced we are, and I put myself at the front of the line here, we are tempted to hold back and to settle for less than what Jesus is calling us to. And so I just so happened to read on this day, these words from Jesus, Luke 14:33, “Any of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.” I’m just compelled to pray. God, we want to renounce it all.
We want to renounce everything we have, everything we are, we’re crucified with you. Jesus, we no longer live but you live in us, the life we live. We live by faith in you. And so we don’t want to hold back from following you with all of our hearts and all of our souls. And we don’t want to settle, compromise for anything less than absolute devotion to you and experiencing you and all that you’re calling us to in this day.
Praying for Strength to not Hold Back
So God, I pray that over my life, over all of our lives, God, to the extent of which this book might be an instrument in your hands, to encourage others toward that end. And please use it in that way for your glory, for building up of the church for the spread of the gospel. And God far beyond any book we just pray in our lives today that you would help us not to hold back from doing all that you’re calling us to do in this unique time, in this unique place you’ve put us in.
May it not be so, may it not be said of us, true of us that we held on to anything. May it be said of us, may it be true of us, that we renounced everything to be your disciples, to be the disciples you are calling us to be in this time, in this place. In Jesus name we pray according to your invitation to us in Luke 14:33. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
