me or Jesus?

The Cost of Following Jesus

18 When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he instructed his disciples to cross to the other side of the lake.
19 Then one of the teachers of religious law said to him, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go."
20 But Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens to live in, and birds have nests, but the Son of Mans has no place even to lay his head."
21 Another of his disciples said, "Lord, first let me return home and bury my father."
22 But Jesus told him, "Follow me now. Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead.s"

matthew 8

i'm pretty sure that i've talked about this already, but it's always good to review! here we can see Jesus is not a big crowd person, as in crowds of people coming just to see His miracles. He has absolutely no problem when they come to hear His teaching, though, as we see in the story where He feeds the five thousand. and so because He'd rather not have people come to Him who are only looking for a show, He tells His disciples to cross to the other side of the lake. one of the religious teachers comes up to Him and says, "teacher! i will follow you wherever you go!" and Jesus gives Him a totally unexpected answer! you would think that Jesus would totally just say, "yeah! come along! the more, the merrier!" nope. He lets the guy know straight up that even foxes and birds have homes and places to hide and rest, but He Himself has no home on earth. in other words, following Jesus is no walk in the park. it's going to be a long and hard journey. He isn't some self-help book that solves all your life's problems and you'll never have to worry about them again. He frees us from sin but we still have to do some legwork as well! not that we do legwork to earn our salvation or anything, but living for Jesus means bearing the hate and persecution of the world, where there is always a mission, there are always people to be saved, there is always more to do until the Son of Man returns in glory.

i think by this time, Jesus had more than 12 disciples, which is contrary to what we usually thought of how many disciples Jesus had. Jesus had the main 12 and of the 12 He had a select few who were His closest friends. so another disciple, one that was an addition to the 12, asks Jesus if He can go home to bury his father first before continuing to follow Jesus. and Jesus replies, 'let the dead bury their own dead." now this may seem harsh but we have to look at the context of this. in Jewish culture, to bury your father actually means to stay with your family until your father passes away and you inherit his business. so in essence, this "disciple" is saying, "Jesus, let me live my life first, and then i'll live my life for you." and Jesus won't have it! He knows that living for Him is so much better than living any other way, and yet this disciple would rather live for himself first before living for Jesus. Jesus tells him to let the spiritually dead inherit the business, to inherit something that will not last forever, that will eventually pass away into nothingness. but let the spiritually alive follow the Son of God because they will inherit something so much bigger and better.

in all, Jesus doesn't necessarily mean to leave everything to follow Him. maybe He does mean that for some of us. maybe that means dropping everything and going on mission. but what Jesus is really saying here is that He wants us to drop anything that we put in front of Him. anything that we think is more important than Him. is it comfort that gets in the way from following Jesus? is it living the good life? would we rather live for ourselves first before we surrender everything to Him? is it a relationship? is it your own future? this is what Jesus is getting at. are you willing to leave what you value the most for Jesus? or is the case that He's the person you value the most so naturally, you could leave everything else? pray over it. am i going to be the person that picks myself over Jesus? or the person that trusts Jesus to take care of me and my loved ones?