Tough Situations
Last week I preached on hating your life in comparison to Jesus. I said that if the word that describes who you is anything but “disciple”, you’re not living the life God has for you.
In our life group on Monday, we talked about what that looks like. We are all young couples with young children, and our families are a major part of our lives. So, naturally, the focus of the conversation was how do we know we love Jesus more than our spouses and children. How do we know we hate our lives–our husbands/wives, kids, etc.–in comparison to Jesus?
We talked about using what we do to teach other people how to have a relationship with Jesus. We talked about being able to choose heaven with Jesus and no family over heaven without Jesus and all your family with you together and happy.
Today I thought of a couple other scenarios to test whether you love Jesus above all else–if you hate your family in comparison to him.
1) Yesterday I was listening to one of Newspring’s services from last month. (Yes, I know, I reference Perry Noble a lot. So sue me.) The message was comprised of different stories of bad things happening to good people. One of the stories was about a young family where the dad died of cancer. A wife had lost her partner and best friend, and three young children had lost their dad. In the midst of their grief they made this statement, “God is still God.” It reminded me of the words of Job, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” If you lost your husband or wife today would your life be over? If you were to lose your kids, would you be lost as a person?
2) I was reading an article on the New York Times’ website about countries in the Mid-East, Africa, and Asia who are struggling for democracy. In the article the author says that prisoners in Bahrain have seen their wives put in jail in front of them and have been told that if they don’t confess, their wives will be raped. As I read about that, I began to think, “If someone told me to renounce Jesus or Amanda would be raped, what would my answer be?” You see, it’s a lot easier for us to sacrifice ourselves for Jesus than it is to sacrifice others. Would you allow your family–your parents, siblings, spouse, children–to be hurt, tortured, or even raped to stay true to Jesus?
I don’t know if I can definitively answer those questions. I hope that if the scenario came up, I’d choose Jesus, but those are tough situations.
How would you respond in these situations?
What are some other ways we can tell we hate our lives in comparison to Jesus?
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After going through a late term pregnancy miscarriage for the second time, a friend of mine grieved, then wrote this as his lesson learned:
“If what you loose makes you question God, then what you lost was your God.”