Luke 14:26: "If any one comes to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife [!] and children ... he cannot be My disciple."

Jesus said something that appears on the surface to be a "hard saying." We are tempted to think it's impossible. But we don't want to turn away from Him without seeking to understand; it may be a nut that is hard to crack but has a sweet kernel inside. It's Luke 14:26: "If any one comes to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife [!] and children ... he cannot be My disciple."

Most other translations don't help much. The word "hate" is there; and what He calls for seems contrary to family love. Love for wife or husband is what makes the world go round; must we give up that love for Jesus? Anyone who we think does so becomes a fanatic in our eyes.

First, what is the meaning of "hate" here? It's to love less, to put in second place. "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated," the Lord says (Mal. 1:2, 3; Rom. 9:13). In other words, Jacob was #1, Esau was #2. When you marry a spouse, you make that spouse #1, everybody else is #2.

So, Jesus says, if you follow Me, you put Me first, every other "love" is now second. And this brings us to the sweetness that's in the kernel:

The Son of God, "the Savior of the world," loved us more than His own eternal life. He chose to go to hell, to die our second death, "to pour out His soul unto death" (Isa. 53:12), so that we might not perish. And not only did He do it for the whole of humanity, but He did it for you and me individually, personally; He is intimately closer to me than anyone else could ever be. If I simply believe the truth, every other human love immediately becomes secondary.

But wonder of wonders, in the process every other love becomes purified, ennobled, more precious because now it has found its place "in Him." It is sanctified by the law of heaven. It becomes true love. And now every other love that once seemed so precarious has a new quality: it "never faileth" (1 Cor. 13:8).

This is another way of telling us what faith is: it's getting to know the Son of God whose love for you took the initiative, like a man initiates the love between man and woman; he woos her. She responds to his love; and so we respond to Christ's first love. And that brings us back again to Calvary. Survey that wondrous cross and all the tangled confusion that has been your heart becomes clear at last.