"Another disciple said to Him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
the second person in the passage had a sincere intention to follow Jesus, recognizing Him to be the Lord, but he says to Jesus, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."
this seems reasonable, even noble at first. perhaps the man had responsibilities to his family that he had to fulfill. everyone could understand his position.
but if you think about it, what the man is really saying is this: "Lord, i will follow You, but first I'm going to wait until my father passes on."
in other words, this "disciple" (v 21) was going to wait until such and such an event happened in his life, and then He was going to follow Jesus. he would give his life to Jesus at some point. but he would do his own thing first.
do we recognize ourselves in this man, this delaying and putting off what we know we ought to do?
we say to ourselves that we will fully commit to the Lord at some point in the future, maybe when we finish school, or get married, or have children, or start working, or when we have our life and career in order, or when we get "those issues" resolved, or when we get a certain "feeling" or "conviction".
but we put off fully committing ourselves to the Lord, because we think we can do our own things first and then just "will" ourselves to follow Him wholeheartedly sometime in the future.
we are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can be more devoted at some future time,
what we are right now is a good indication of what we will be in the future, only more so. we know this because if we honestly look at our lives from childhood we know that we are essentially the same in our character now as we were then, only a thousand times more set in our ways.
this putting off of giving our whole heart to Christ is fatal, and the excuses behind it are as numerous and as varied as the number of people reading this blog.
it hardly needs to be said that this man who had every sincere intention of one day following Jesus once he got his own things done was deemed by our Lord as "not fit for service in the kingdom of God" (luke 9:62).
the great preacher charles spurgeon once told a story about a meeting satan had with his devils on how best to lead men to eternal destruction. one devil put forth a plan that was determined to be the very best of all of them:
"I will tell men that they have souls, and that there is a God, and that the Bible is true. I will leave them to believe as they will, but I have whispered in their ear that there is plenty of time to consider all this . . .
there was a hush, and the great master of demons said, "Thou hast done best of all. This is my great net in which I take more souls than with any other, this net of procrastination or delay."
3 comments:
Thanks for such a convicting reflection Dulla smn! I feel like this is just like me always using milestones (of my own pursuits and goals) to justify not being 'ready' to fully serve God alone. Like everything in life getting into the practice of things is key if you want to make something routine in your life. I definitely need prayer so that I can start getting into the practice of serving God and putting that first in my life. Maybe we should pray for each other.
There have been countless times where I followed my own agenda rather than listening to God. When I am asked to give up my time for others, I can honestly say I always have to think about it first. I know that others are more willing to drop what they are doing, but I can not say that is the case for myself. I'm sure it would be a different story if Jesus were to tell me face to face to follow after Him, but then again, I can't promise that I would be able to let go of everything. The thought of leaving my loved ones is unimaginable, but this is something I must be willing to do.
As Christine has mentioned, may we be able to serve God first before ourselves or anyone else. May this be our prayer and desire.
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