April 11

Think About It

The extreme character of discipleship: The language is unmistakably absolute, definitive, severe, you might say. But this is not anyone speaking other than God Himself, God incarnate, the Lord, Jesus Christ. He establishes the standards of discipleship. He determines the character of true repentance and saving faith. And it seems, when you study the words of Jesus, that instead of making it easy, He always seemed to make it hard. In fact, by most human assessments He makes it virtually impossible. We’re good in our culture at making things easy. Simplify, simplify we’re told. Make it as easy as possible. And this even finds its way into the church where we want to devise a gospel or a message that is easy to receive and easy to accept and easy to believe. This is not what Jesus did. ~ John MacArthur

Read / Listen
Joshua 3:1-4:24
Luke 14:7-35
Psalm 80:1-19
Proverbs 12:27-28

New Testament

Luke 14:7-35

Summary

The Parable of Wedding Feast
The Parable of the Great Banquet
The Cost of Discipleship
Salt Without Taste Is Worthless

For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” ~ Luke 14:11

Luke 14:21

“And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ ~ Luke 14:21

What did Jesus mean when He instructed us to hate our father and mother (Luke 14:26)?

hate. A similar statement in Matthew 10:37 is the key to understanding this difficult command. The “hatred” called for here is actually a lesser love. Jesus was calling His disciples to cultivate such a devotion to Him that their attachment to everything else—including their own lives—would seem like hatred by comparison.
~ MacArthur Bible Commentary

What does it mean to “count the cost” (Luke 14:28)?