Putting Christ First

The Savior told His disciples, “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).   The word hate in this passage certainly seems very strong, was He really telling us to hate our family?  The student manual says, “The Greek word translated as ‘hate’ means to ‘love less’ or ‘esteem less.’ The Savior was not revoking the commandment to ‘honour thy father and thy mother’ (Exodus 20:12); He was teaching about priorities. For a disciple, devotion to family must come after devotion to Jesus Christ.”  Matthew put similar counsel in a little different way which is easier to understand: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37).  The message is that the Savior must be our first priority—to be a true disciple of the Savior following Him has to be our most important endeavor.  And part of following Him will often entail loving and serving our families. 

             Several events in the life of the Savior show that we are indeed to care for and love our families as part of our discipleship.  We see first of all the love He had for His own mother, serving her in Cana when He turned the water into wine, and then commending her to the apostle John for care at the time of His crucifixion.  Doing His Father’s will was more important to Him than sparing Mary the pains of watching her son suffer, and yet He still did what He could to love and bless her.  He also taught the need to love children, which surely including our own in our family, saying, “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:5-6).  So though, yes, we are to love the Savior more than even our own children, if we do so then that love for Him will lead us to receive and love our children all the more.  Many stories in which He healed the children brought to Him by their parents further testify of His focus on children—He did not condemn these desperate parents for loving their children but rather sought to help them exercise faith in Him so those children could be healed.  When the Savior visited Mary and Martha at the time of the death of Lazarus, He showed His support for the love of siblings for one another.  But again in this story He sought to help Mary and Martha exercise pure faith in Him as part of the miracle He provided to heal their brother.  He testified to them, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” (John 11:25-26)  Loving our siblings is indeed a part of our discipleship, but faith in Him must come first.  Surely the Lord’s words recorded by Luke weren’t really meant to suggest that we hate our families; but by putting the Savior first our love for and concern for them becomes all the more important as we seek to emulate the love He showed for all.