How
can these things be? If a person refers to Jesus as any of the titles
in white above and yet practices the comments in yellow, how can it
be said that he “loves” Jesus? Good question. And then there is
the statement of Jesus, himself in Matthew 7…
Matthew
7 ( World English
Bible )
Mat
7:21, 'Not every one who is saying to me Lord, lord, shall come into
the reign of the heavens; but he who is doing
the will of my Father who is in the heavens.
Mat 7:22, Many will say to me in that day, Lord, lord, have we
not in thy name prophesied? and in thy name cast out demons? and in
thy name done many mighty things?
Mat 7:23, and then I will acknowledge to them, that--I never knew
you, depart from me ye who are working lawlessness.
OK, this passage sheds some light on the subject – but, those that
Jesus mentions are doing some good things in his name (7:22) and yet
they are unknown by Jesus ( and presumably condemned ).
Yesterday, my scheduled Bible Reading was Luke 14 and I especially
remember Luke 14:26. There is a problem, however, and it lies in the
translation of the word HATE. Most translations use hate and
it bothered me that we are to hate our relatives and even our own
lives, so I did a little digging. Here are the verses I found in
several translations...
Luk
14:26 ( World English
Bible )
“If
anyone comes to me, and doesn’t disregard* (emphasis
added) his own
father, mother, wife, children, brothers, and sisters, yes, and his
own life also, he can’t be my disciple.
*
literally, hate
Luke
14:26 ( NASB)
Luk 14:26, “A If anyone comes to Me, and does not 1,2
hate (emphasis
added) his own father and mother and wife and children and
brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My
disciple.
1
that is, by comparison of his love for me
2
When our Savior says that he who would follow him must hate
father and mother, he means that even these dearest earthly friends
must be loved in a subordinate degree; so, in the same sense, the
follower of Christ is to hate his own life, or be willing to
sacrifice it for the love and service of the Redeemer - Cyclopedia of
Biblical Literature, McClintock & Strong - “hate”
Luk
14:26 ( ASV )
If
any man cometh unto me, and hateth (emphasis
added) not his own father, and mother, and wife, and
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple.
Luk
14:26 ( Young’s Literal
Translation )
'If
any one doth come unto me, and doth not hate (emphasis
added) his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and
brothers, and sisters, and yet even his own life, he is not able to
be my disciple;
All
these things led me to understand that we can love our families and
our own life, but love JESUS MORE. Back to the graphic
– Those who love JESUS LESS, practice the things it
mentions in yellow and will have a big problem at the judgment. But,
those who love Jesus more than anything else are OK.
Now,
all we have to do is to love JESUS more than ANYTHING and do HIS
WILL – and everything will be fine!
Problem
solved.