Discipleship. This word is used quite frequently in the church, but what is it? What is

discipleship? Discipleship for the Christian is bringing one's life into conformity with Christ.

It's sitting at his feet through the studying of his word.

It's growing in knowledge.

It's growing in love.

It is daily recognizing that our flesh, our default nature,

is to move out of conformity with Christ and to pursue anything but Christ.

And that by renewing our minds daily, we strive to conform our lives to who it is that has

saved us, saved us from sin and death. And in Luke chapter 14,

Jesus tells us about the nature of discipleship. 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. So Jesus is looking for hateful people. People who hate their

family. And yes, people who hate themselves. Right? I've heard people that will take this text

and say, see, Jesus's teaching is totally

unbalanced. How can you hold this? We know what he says. He's the same one who tells us to love our

enemies. This is the same Jesus who's called the Prince of Peace. This is the same Jesus who tells

his disciples that the world will know you for your love that you have for one another.

And now he wants us to hate.

Well, Jesus is teaching through hyperbole here.

It is an obvious and an intentional exaggeration.

But there is a deeper issue that I feel needs pressing on here.

And that is that I fear we have a cheap and a weak view of love.

And I do not mean that as a culture or as a society, because I don't expect much from the culture and the society.

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