Where is your allegiance?

In Luke 14:26, Jesus makes this astounding statement: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Did Jesus really mean that? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking he did, but we need to give this some context.

First, Jesus doesn’t truly want us to hate anyone, not even our enemies. Remember that he said “love your enemies.”[1] If we are to love even our enemies, how are we to “hate” anyone? The answer is obvious: we cannot.

Remember also what Jesus said are the two greatest commandments: love God and love others.[2] Let’s look at that first commandment a little closer: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”[3] Mark adds, “and with all your strength.”[4] This language comes from Deuteronomy 6:5, where Moses tells the Israelites:

Hear, Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. And you shall repeat them diligently to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk on the road, when you lie down, and when you get up. You shall also tie them as a sign to your hand, and they shall be as frontlets on your forehead. You shall also write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.[5]

This commandment to love God was so important that the Israelites were to keep it uppermost in their minds at all times. They were to constantly remind themselves and each other about it. No wonder Jesus said it was number one.

What this means, for them and for us, is that God must be our number one priority, more important than anyone or anything else. So when Jesus said we must “hate” everyone else in order to be his disciple, he simply meant that our love for family—and even for ourselves—must be subordinate to our love for God. We must love God more. In Matthew 10:37-38, Jesus made this point clear:

The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

For those of us who sincerely want to follow Jesus, nothing and no one can be more important to us than God—not family, friends, church, money, power, success, fame, or country,[6] or even our own selves. God and Jesus have to come first. That means we must always try to do what God wants us to do, just as children who love and trust their parents will try to obey them. (As Jesus said in Luke 6:46: “Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”)

That also means that people who need our help have to be our number two priority, because loving our “neighbor” as ourself is the second greatest commandment.[7]

[1]. Matthew 5:43-44, Luke 6:27, Luke 6:35

[2]. Matthew 22:35-40 and Mark 12:28-34; see also Luke 10:25-28

[3]. Matthew 22:37

[4]. Mark 12:30

[5]. Deuteronomy 6:4-9

[6]. I am frankly concerned for so-called Christian nationalists, because my impression is that they are placing their love of power and country above their love of God. And I hope I need hardly say that the racism and/or antisemitism which underlie some of these Christian nationalist movements is completely inconsistent with Christianity, for racists are ignoring both of the two greatest commandments—at best, they love their race more than God, and they only love neighbors who look like them. We’ve seen such racism and antisemitism before, and it did not end well for real Christians.

[7]. Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31 (see also Leviticus 19:18)