Costs of following Jesus

In Luke 14:25-35, Jesus was traveling with a large group of people when he addressed the crowd with a startling statement, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

Jesus lays it out there black and white for all the masses who were following with him. Jesus asked for total commitment from those who wanted to be his followers, and this started with loving him more than even your closest family members. Some versions of the Bible use "hate" and others have "let go" in referring to how one is supposed to relate to family.

This got me thinking. At first, I read and say, "This is a tough pill to swallow because I don't know how I can hate my wife or my family." But the more I thought, I realized that Jesus was the one, and only one, who died on the cross for my sins so I can have eternal life with him. He made this amazing sacrifice. He saved me and he asked me to hate/let go of my family so I can be fully devoted to following Jesus.

Jesus goes on to use an analogy of how the cost of being a disciple needs to be a decision that is well thought out.

He says that if you want to build a tower, you consider the costs, lay out the plans, decide which materials are needed, the laborers you need to hire. Jesus points out that you don't want to get part of the way into the project and have something go wrong and cause you to stop building. This stoppage would cause you to be ridiculed among the people in town. Jesus points out that people will say, "This fellow began to build and was not able to finish."

I feel that many people draw their strength and/or discouragement from the words of others. This doesn't need to be the case but we all fall into this trap from time to time. When we follow Jesus, people will wait for us to mess up, only to say, "See these Christians are all the same, hypocrites."

I pray that I can follow Jesus and trust that he will allow me to be a positive light for him even when I do things that may not be the best representation of him. I wonder how can we guard ourselves from starting something for Jesus and not seeing it through to the finish?