Bible Truth Foundations
Part 1 of 3: New Life in Christ
Please begin by answering this question honestly in your own words.
Think of the deepest commitment you have made in your life. What made you willing to make it, and what has it cost you?
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NKJV)
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
The call to commitment in this lesson is rooted in something that has already happened. Read these verses again and notice whose initiative is described first.
The central idea of this lesson
Jesus does not ask for partial allegiance alongside your existing priorities. He asks to be first. That is not a demand made by a tyrant; it is an invitation made by the one who already gave everything for you.
At a point in His ministry when vast numbers were following Him, Jesus turned and said something that stopped many of them in their tracks:
Luke 14:25–26 (NKJV)
Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
This was not an accident. Jesus was not being careless with His words. He used the strongest term available in the language to say something that required a decision: the crowd would need to thin itself. Those who were following out of curiosity, or to receive benefits, or simply because everyone else was going the same direction, would have to reconsider. Those who were genuinely willing to follow at any cost were being identified.
Note
"Hate" in Luke 14:26 is a word of comparison, not a command to feel hatred toward your family. In Hebrew thought, this kind of language expresses a priority ranking: to love one thing less in comparison to something else. The same usage appears in Genesis 29:31 where Leah is described as "hated" in comparison to Rachel, meaning loved less. Jesus is saying: your relationship with Me must rank above every other relationship, including your relationship with yourself. If those relationships are placed above your relationship with Me, genuine discipleship is not yet in place. This is not a licence to neglect or be unkind to family; it is a statement about the ordering of ultimate loyalty.
Luke 9 records three brief encounters that together paint a realistic picture of what commitment to Jesus costs. In each one, an obstacle stands between a person and following:
Luke 9:57–62 (NKJV)
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, 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." Then He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God." And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house." But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
The first person offered enthusiastic commitment without counting the cost: no settled home, no guaranteed security. Jesus named the reality. The second and third both said they would follow, but with a prior condition: "let me first." Jesus treated both conditions as incompatible with the commitment being offered. The phrase "no one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back" captures the problem precisely: ploughing a straight furrow requires your eyes fixed forward. A divided mind produces a crooked line.
Note
"Let me first go and bury my father" likely did not mean the father had just died. It was a common idiom meaning "let me stay and care for my father until he dies and I have inherited from him." The commitment was conditional on first receiving what the person expected from the existing arrangement. Jesus' response was not callous; it was a recognition that this particular "first" would always find a reason to remain first. Conditions attached to the commitment reveal that something else still holds the primary position.
Jesus was not trying to recruit people under false pretences. Immediately after the hard saying about family relationships, He gave an illustration that makes this explicit:
Luke 14:28–30 (NKJV)
"For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it — lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish'?"
This is not a warning to stay away from following Jesus. It is an invitation to engage honestly before committing. Jesus is saying: do not follow Me casually; do not follow Me on a wave of enthusiasm that does not survive the first difficulty. Sit down and think about what you are actually agreeing to. Understand the cost. Then choose. The person who begins the tower and cannot finish is not praised for having started; they become an object of contempt. Half-commitment is worse than honesty about not being ready.
Going Deeper
Luke 8:13-14 (NKJV) identifies two patterns that look like commitment but are not: "But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a while and in time of temptation fall away. Now the ones that fell among thorns are those who, when they have heard, go out and are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to maturity." The first group has excitement without root; the second has root without fruit because competing priorities crowd it out. Both are forms of incomplete commitment. The first fails under pressure; the second fails under prosperity. A fully committed disciple must be sustainable under both conditions.
Here is the theological ground beneath everything else in this lesson. The call to commitment does not arise from nowhere. It arises from what has already happened:
1 Corinthians 6:19–20 (NKJV)
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.
You are not your own. That is not a threat; it is a statement of what has already taken place. A price was paid. The cross was that price. The commitment being asked of you is a response to a commitment that God made first and already fulfilled. God did not wait to see how committed you would be before He sent Christ. He committed fully, at infinite cost, while you were still a sinner and an enemy. The call to wholehearted commitment is an invitation to live in alignment with a reality that is already true.
Going Deeper
Ezekiel 16:8 (NKJV) uses the language of marriage covenant to describe God's commitment to His people: "When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love; so I spread My wing over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you, and you became Mine." The covenant metaphor runs throughout Scripture. God did not merely invite relationship; He bound Himself in covenant. James 4:4-5 (NKJV) uses the same framework from the other side: "Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, 'The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously'?" The Spirit yearns jealously because the relationship is covenantal, not casual. Divided allegiance in a covenant is a form of betrayal, not merely a preference.
John 2:23-25 records a moment worth examining carefully:
John 2:23–25 (NKJV)
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.
Many believed in His name because of the signs. Jesus did not commit Himself to them. The Greek word translated "commit" here is the same word used for "believe"; it is as if John is deliberately drawing a contrast: they believed in Him, but He did not believe in them, because He could see that their belief was conditional on the signs continuing. Sign-based commitment is not genuine commitment; it is a transaction. Jesus is looking for people who will follow Him regardless of whether circumstances remain favourable. That kind of following is the product of a decision made at depth, not an emotional response to impressive events.
Caution
This lesson must be held alongside what Sections A and B established. Commitment is not how you earn salvation; salvation is already yours through grace by faith. Commitment is your response to what grace has already done. A person who tries to earn God's acceptance through the fervour of their commitment has misunderstood the Gospel. Equally, a person who treats grace as a reason to make no commitment at all has misunderstood what it means to receive it. Romans 6:1-2 (NKJV) addresses that second error directly: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!" Grace and commitment belong together; they simply belong in the right order. Grace comes first; commitment is its fruit.
Practical Tip
Luke 14:28 says to sit down and count the cost before building. This week, do that exercise honestly. Write down two or three areas of your life where Jesus is not currently first: where another relationship, another priority or your own comfort consistently takes the lead. Do not treat this as a reason for guilt; treat it as useful information. Bring each of those areas to God specifically and ask what wholehearted commitment looks like there in practice. Commitment becomes real in the specifics, not in the general intention.
Work through these on your own before your group meets. Type your answers directly into the table below. Your answers are saved automatically in your browser.
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| Question | My Answer | Group Discussion Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Read Luke 14:25-26. Jesus said these words to a large crowd of followers. What effect do you think His words were intended to have on that crowd? What was He separating out? | ||
| Read Luke 9:57-62. In each of the three encounters, what was the obstacle that stood between the person and wholehearted following? How would you name the underlying issue in each case? | ||
| Read Luke 14:28-30. Jesus is not warning people away from following Him; He is inviting them to count the cost honestly. What is the difference between those two things? | ||
| Read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Paul says "you are not your own; you were bought at a price." How does understanding that this has already happened change the nature of the commitment being asked for? | ||
| Read John 2:23-25. Many people believed because of the signs, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them. What kind of belief was Jesus not satisfied with, and what do you think He was looking for instead? |
These questions are designed for open conversation at any level of experience. There are no trick questions and no single correct answer.
Commitment is tested in the specifics, not in the general intention. These applications press into three areas where undivided allegiance is most commonly negotiated away.
| Context | How I Apply This |
|---|---|
| In your priorities | Luke 14:28 invites you to sit down and count the cost. Do that exercise this week in writing: list the top five things that currently claim the most significant portion of your time and energy. Where does your relationship with God rank on that list, not in theory but in practice? If it is not first, that is not a reason for guilt; it is the beginning of an honest conversation with God about what reordering would look like. |
| When following becomes costly | The person who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom (Luke 9:62). When following Jesus costs you something concrete, whether that is a relationship, an opportunity or a reputation, that is the moment where commitment is real or is revealed as conditional. Decide before the cost arrives what your response will be. Commitment made in advance of the crisis is more reliable than commitment made in the middle of it. |
| In belonging to the church | First Corinthians 6:19-20 is addressed to a community, not just an individual. "You" in that passage is plural. You are bought at a price alongside others who have been bought at the same price. Commitment to Jesus includes commitment to His body. If your relationship with a local church community is currently characterised by the same conditional, "let me first" posture that Jesus challenged in Luke 9, bring that honestly into view and consider what wholehearted belonging would look like. |
Tap each card to reveal the answer.
What does "hate" mean in Luke 14:26?
A word of comparison expressing priority ranking, not literal hatred. To love one thing less in comparison to another. Jesus is saying: your relationship with Him must rank above every other relationship, including your own life.
What does Jesus say about the person who looks back after putting their hand to the plow?
Luke 9:62
"No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God."
Luke 9:62 (NKJV). Discipleship requires eyes fixed forward, not backward.
What does Paul say about ownership and price in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20?
1 Corinthians 6:19–20
"You are not your own. For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."
1 Corinthians 6:20 (NKJV). Commitment responds to a purchase already made.
Why does Jesus say to count the cost before committing?
Luke 14:28–30
So that a person commits fully and finishes rather than starting and stopping. A builder who cannot finish is mocked; half-commitment is worse than honest hesitation. Jesus invites a deliberate, informed choice.
What causes people to fall away from faith, according to Luke 8:13-14?
Luke 8:13–14
No root: belief collapses under temptation or pressure. Competing priorities: cares, riches and pleasures of life crowd out fruitfulness. Both are forms of incomplete commitment: one fails under pressure, one under prosperity.
Why did Jesus not commit Himself to those who believed because of signs in John 2:24?
John 2:23–25
Because He knew what was in them. Their belief was conditional on signs continuing. Jesus was looking for commitment that would hold when circumstances were not favourable, not a transaction dependent on results.