Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Worth It to Follow Jesus was written by Tim Gustafson.

Roenite came from a religious but not Christian family.

Their discussions about spiritual matters were dry and academic.

I kept praying all the prayers, she said, but I wasn't hearing from God. She began to study the

Bible. Slowly, steadily, she inched towards faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Roenite describes

the defining moment. I heard a clear voice in my heart saying,

You've heard enough. You've seen enough. It's time to just believe. But Roenite faced a problem,

her father. My dad responded as if Mount Vesuvius erupted, she recalls.

When Jesus walked this earth, crowds followed him.

We don't know exactly what they were looking for, but he was looking for disciples.

And that comes with a cost.

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, Jesus said in Luke chapter 14.

He told a story about building a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost, he asked.

Jesus's point wasn't that we're to literally

hate family. Rather, it's that we must choose him over everything else. He said, you whom do not give

up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Roneet loves her family, deeply, yet she concluded, whatever the cost, I figured it's worth it.

What might you need to give up to follow Jesus as he guides you?

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Luke chapter 14, verses 25 through 33.

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them, he said,

If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters,

...