Luke 9:57-62
The Cost of Following Jesus
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
John 14:6-7
The Way to God is Through Jesus
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 If you had known Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”…
John 17:3
Now This is Eternal Life
3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Jesus teaches us to follow God and He wants very much for us to follow both God and Himself...Jesus is our Way to God...No one gets to the Father, except through the Son...And He gives us these words in defining eternal life: that we know the One True God and the One He sent...Jesus wants us to understand and have eternal joy with Him and His Father in heaven, with our sights and our hearts on the Father and Son...
Jesus teaches us that it is very difficult to try to follow God and Himself...Jesus told one man who wanted to follow Him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”...Another one who wanted to follow Him said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”...Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”...
We are to make God and His Son a priority in our lives...No we are to make Both the Father and His Son "the" priority in our lives...Yet, that is very difficult thing to do but it is what is taught in the gospel...And as we follow Jesus' teachings we can see that He put God above all things...
Pastor and author John Piper wrote, “Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God...And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there...The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God...It's a way of overcoming every obstacle to everlasting joy in God...If we don't want God above all things, we have not been converted by the gospel.”...