Another of Jesus’s followers said to Him, ‘LORD, I WILL FOLLOW YOU, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house’, Luke chapter 9 verse 61.

Once again, there is no reason to doubt this person’s initial desire; nevertheless, his words betray his total lack of understanding as to what discipleship means. Like many today, he wanted a foot in two camps. His heart was divided and not totally fixed on the Lord Jesus. He wanted the option of turning back to his family/friends, when it suited him.

Jesus was not saying that this man should not have friends but He was stating clearly that if they distracted him from devotion to Him, it would disqualify him from being a true disciple. Following Jesus calls for complete devotion to Him, just as He was totally devoted to doing His Father’s will. We must not allow anything from the present or our past to distract us, however legitimate they might seem.

Jesus turned to a well-known scene from farming to bring the point home to this would-be disciple: ‘No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God’, Luke chapter 9 verse 62. Keeping our eyes fixed ahead on the Lord Jesus is the only way for the true disciple to travel in a straight line. Once we look back, we become distracted and get our priorities wrong. There is nothing wrong, of course, in saying farewell to family or friends; however, if it gets in the way of total devotion and obedience to the Lord, it becomes a sin.

Although the following words of Jesus were spoken in the context of the danger of loving earthly riches, they can be applied to our meditation today: ‘No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other’ Matthew chapter 6 verse 24.