.png)
While I was in college at the University of Tennessee, I mistakenly signed up for a French class. I remember walking in on the first day and hearing the professor say, “The best way for you guys to learn French is for me to only speak French.” From that moment, I knew I was in trouble.
On top of trying to learn a foreign language, I was also trying to play for one of the top football teams in the country. If this wasn’t enough of a distraction, there was also a really beautiful girl in the class who would stare at me from across the room. After a couple of weeks, I got the girl’s number and spent every single class period flirting with her instead of focusing on the lecture. I’m guessing you can put the pieces together and conclude that I wasn’t focused enough to actually learn a new language.
The more I read the Bible, the more I realize that the Kingdom of Heaven has its own language and without eliminating every distraction from your life, you will never learn it.
The interesting thing about the word “disciple” is that it actually means “student.” So, technically, the disciples left everything to become "students" of the Kingdom of Heaven, and Jesus says that if you are not willing to set everything to the side, you can never be His disciple, or, student.
“If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life [in the sense of indifference to or relative disregard for them in comparison with his attitude toward God]—he cannot be My disciple." - Luke 14:26 AMP
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]." - Matthew 16:24 AMP
Isn’t it interesting that the original disciples had Jesus, Himself, as their teacher and they had to leave everything and walk with Jesus every day? They had to sleep and eat in the same house as Him for them to understand the ways of the Kingdom. Without sacrificing every moment of their lives, the disciples wouldn’t have been able to understand the Kingdom of Heaven although they had the greatest teacher of all time.
So imagine how foolish you look depending on someone to teach you for just one hour a week. And take this into consideration: is the guy teaching you conforming his own personal life to the ways of Jesus Christ?
Question of the day: Are you fit to be a student of the Kingdom or would Jesus Christ kick you out of His classroom?
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.” - Luke 9:57-62 NKJV