Now, great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “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.”
– Luke 14:25–26
How’s that for an opening? Jesus turns to this massive crowd around him and says, “If you’re going to stick with me, you need to hate your mom and dad, and wife and kids, and brothers and sisters, and your own life. Otherwise, you can’t follow me.”
Luke 14:25–26 calls us to love Christ above everything else.
What in the world does that mean? Well, obviously, and we know from all throughout Scripture, this is not Jesus saying that we don’t honor our parents, for example. That’s part of the Ten Commandments, and that’s echoed in the New Testament, that we obey and honor our parents. And certainly, we love our spouses. “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. And wives, respect and love and honor your husbands.” And we love our children. So this is not a call from Jesus to literally hate the people in our family.
Even just the most basic commandment he gives us, the second greatest commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But what he is saying here, you feel the weight of it, is that our love for him should make our closest relationships in this world look like hate in comparison. That’s the language in Matthew 10. “Whoever loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” The whole picture is a superior love and affection for Jesus, for God, which is the first greatest commandment. “Love the Lord your God…” Not with some of your heart and some of your soul and some of your mind and some of your strength, but with everything you have. Supreme, undivided love for God that far outweighs your love for anyone or anything in this world, or everyone and everything in this world combined.
Luke 14:25–26 reminds us that God is the initiator of our love for Him.
And so I want to lead us to pray for this kind of affection, knowing that our love for God is the overflow of what? His love for us. This is not a command to love God in a way that is one-sided. This is a command to find life and love relationship with God himself, who loves you with a supernatural everlasting unfading, deeper-than-you-can-fathom kind of love.
So God, we say yes to this. Help us to live today out of the overflow of superior affection in our relationship with you… Far more than anyone or anything else in this world. God, we pray, help us, teach us to find life in loving you with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength. We say in light of your Word, in light of your love for us, which we praise you for God. We praise you for your supernatural, everlasting, unfading, death-conquering love for us. We say, we love you, God, we worship you. We trust you. We want to obey you. We surrender to you. We desire you.
The one thing we seek, to behold you in all of your glory to see you. There’s no one like you. We love you, God. And we want to love you today with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, all our strength… Knowing that this is where our life is found in love, affectionate relationship with you.
This verse helps us to love others well.
So God, help us to settle for nothing less than this. And as the overflow of this, to show your love in our lives, to love our neighbors as ourselves… To love our father and mother and wife, our husband and children, and brothers and sisters. God, help us to love the people around us all the better as a result of doing so out of the overflow of love for You.
Yes, God, make us the best parents, spouses, children, family members, friends, coworkers, and classmates we can be… Because we’re walking in a love relationship with you. And God, we pray that your love would spread through us today. And your church, help us to love one another well today. As we interact with people who don’t know you, help us to love them well today and point them to your love in Jesus.
Prayer for the Sarikoli Tajik People
And God, we pray for the spread of your love all around the world. We pray specifically today for the Sarikoli Tajik people of China… 44,000 Muslims in the Sarikoli Tajik people. Oh God, we pray, we intercede for them. And we ask that you would send laborers to spread your love to them. And we pray that they would respond. That they would have open hearts and eyes and minds to see you, Jesus, and your love for them. Oh God, help us to love you so much that we will lay down our lives and our resources to spread your love to the ends of the earth. We pray all this in light of your Word in Luke 14. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
