Irvin Wasswa
Tylertown Campus Pastor
Luke 9:57-62
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[g] said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
When I was 14 years old I was invited to do some training for the Taekwondo Junior Olympics. I loved Taekwondo and enjoyed training, however the junior olympics was a different level of commitment. After the first training, the instructor gave me a ride home and shared with me the level of commitment it was going to take in order to achieve my goal. One of the commitments he was imploring me to make was to make some changes to my diet. He wanted me to give up junk food and focus on clean eating. Here was the problem with that, I was a 14 year old kid who LOVED junk food. I loved honey buns and french fries too much. I was fine with the hard practices, but the asking to give up junk food was too much of a commitment so I made the executive decision to quit training for the olympics.
I would’ve liked to say that I was committed to taekwondo when I was around that age. I had trained hard and made it to black belt. I enjoyed competing in the tournaments as well and believed I was pretty good! However, the truth of the matter was that I was not all in. I was not willing to surrender my dietary ways in order to be the best competitor I could be. I chose what I wanted to be committed to and framed it as that I was all in, when in reality that was not the truth.
If we were to be honest today, there are many who view the Christian life the same way. They may be willing to do a little bit of good stuff in Jesus’ name but are unwilling to be ALL in for Him. They are willing to give Him a little time on Sundays which is great, but choose to check Him out of their life Monday through Saturday. Jesus here shares the fact that Christianity is a call to be ALL in. The call to follow Jesus is one that is a call to surrender. When you say yes to Him in a relationship, you are saying yes to giving Him your life, you are saying yes to living open-handed, you are saying yes to letting Him lead you. Choose to surrender all to Him today and every day!