To Be Or Not To Be

A letter from a dear friend.

I've been reading the bible and I thought I would ask your interpritation of this passage: Luke 14:26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.

This verse had once bothered me a bit, but I do have a sense of what it is saying. The first thing to realize in this scripture is that it is a bad translation. The word hate is not a good translation. A better way to translate would be love less. Which I believe is closer to the Greek meaning of the word.


The title of verses 25-33 is "The Cost of Discipleship." I think taking the whole passage gives it a better meaning as well. What Christ is saying here is that He has to be all. We should look at our lives and what we value most, because he wants us to give it all up for the sake of the call that He has for our lives. Even to the point of dying for Him. Do not forget that He would never ask us to do anything that He has not endured. He sympathizes with all our weaknesses. He is calling for an all or nothing approach to following him, and in doing so at one time or another every relationship we have will be effected by our whole-heart response to His call.

I can see in my own life, after walking through hardships that have left me on the outside of relationships, because of my faith, what he means. He wants us to keep our mind's eye focused on Him. Whoever we love the most...that is who we care about their opinions the most. He wants our focus, so that when others are leading us down a road that is insecure or they are wanting us to get into situations that are not the best, we will look to Christ who understands our deep unmet needs and find the love and strength, that only he can truly offer. We will then follow him into the relationships we wouldn't dare or to the hungry and sick that we wound't have the stomach for. We can then have victory in this world of much defeat. I have done both, and I would not have begged you to read the word and turn to our most Gracious Heavenly Father, if I have not felt his healing, overflowing love spilling on me time and time again in my darkest times. I can't think of a better way to live than completely sold out for my relationship with Him.