The demands of Jesus for loyalty are total. He is the Lord of Lords. But if we try and deal with those demands in total, we are quickly overwhelmed.
It is no different to our anxiety over clothes and food. If I begin to contemplate how I will feed my family several kilos of food a day over the course of a lifetime, the task (and the contemplation of it) becomes impossible. I would not know how to begin to count the cost of such an endeavour.
I find the following quote, often attributed to Martin Luther, very helpful.
If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.
Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.
Luther’s quote is in keeping with the spirit of the Beatitudes in Matthew. Sufficient for the day are its own troubles.
Luther’s quote also helps us apply Jesus’ words in Luke 14; to hate my own life and bear my cross as a condition of discipleship.
How does God expect us to apply such impossible commands?
One battle at a time. One circumstance at a time.
When reruns of Gilligan’s Island call upon me and tell me to leave the oil change on the Hyundai for my wife to do, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested. There and then, I am to count Gilligan as an enemy.
When money or an each-way bet on race five at Randwick call me down to the office or the TAB on my day of rest, there the battle of my heart is to be fought and won—in favour of the Lordship of Jesus over mammon.
Where my family are off for a day at the beach and I have the needs of the sheep on my shoulder and the Spirit of God drawing me into solitude and prayer, there, right there, I am to pick up my cross. It is also there, and not somewhere else that I will find the grace provided to carry it. And, having lifted the thing up, I am to head toward Jesus.
We win the war one battle at a time. We count the cost one step at a time. We take aim at what is true and real and good with a clean heart and without fear of the consequences. We choose Christ at each point of decision, or else we flinch and choose something else.
For where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is tested and proved.
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