Next of Kin or Akin to Christ

In order to be a follower of Jesus, or a follower of anyone for that matter, one must understand what is being asked of them. You cannot say you are following someone if you do not know what that person expects of you. If your mother says, “Do as I say,” which many mothers do, you may be extremely eager to do as she wishes, but you have no way of following her requests until she gives you some direction. In much the same way we cannot begin to follow Jesus, or be His disciple for that matter, until we understand what it is the He desires of us. Once we understand that we can begin to follow Him, and be confident we are doing a satisfactory job of being His disciple.

The word disciple - which comes from the Greek word mathetes (meaning learner or pupil) – often gets thrown around in church circles like a frisbee at a picnic, but do we understand what it really means? We assume that it means a person who follows Jesus, but we only assume that because that is what we have been told by people much like us; people who heard the word somewhere along the way and decided to use it because it sounded spiritual. Moreover, follow is a very relative term since it could mean a high level of commitment to something or someone, and it also could imply that we follow Jesus the same way we follow the local news, picking up tidbits here and there, and whenever we go to the hair salon.

In order to understand what the word disciple means – in the context of following Jesus – we must understand what the apostles did. The apostles of Christ are the best example we have of what it means to follow our savior in a fashion that both pleases and honors Him.

So what are the requirements of true discipleship?

In Matthew 16:24 Jesus says to His disciples, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” This is perhaps the most challenging of all the calls of true discipleship. Jesus is not asking us to simply add Him to our list of commitments that we already have, after all that wouldn’t be so hard to do, we add new commitments almost everyday without a second thought. He is not even asking that we put Him at the top of the list, which is definitely more challenging, but still not terrifying. No, He is asking us to remove all of our other commitments and leave following Him as our sole obligation and purpose in life. When Jesus says deny He means everything. And we know He is serious about that because in Luke 14:26 He says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brother and sisters – yes even his own life – he cannot be my disciple.” The ironic thing is that perhaps the easiest piece of this statement to swallow is the hate your own life part. Many of us can relate to hating our own life, since we have found no satisfaction in what the world has to offer - and paradoxically - what we have to offer it. But hating one’s own family is something completely different. Why would Christ ask us to adhere to a request that has such damaging ramifications, and so obviously goes against everything we know to be true and good?

It all comes down to understanding what discipleship truly signifies. If we love Christ the way that we should it will be as if we hate everything else that is in the world, because all of its value will pale in comparison with that which we attach to the Son of God. When we compare the way that we love others, even our next of kin, to the way that we love and adore Jesus, it will be as if we are neglecting them, and leaving them without and ounce of care. Once we have loved Christ this much we will understand what it means to be a true disciple.