Often a visit to the doctor can prove to be a ‘life-changing experience’. You find out things about yourself that you wish were not true, and yet it is better to know the fact than to live the lie. The doctor prescribes the treatment and we take the tablets trusting the better judgment of those who know.

Years ago I was told by a doctor that I needed to ‘rest for a while’. Sounds enticing, but when you are told to do it, and your metabolism is fast, the suggestion is not so attractive. Shortly after that, a friend met me and having asked where I was going, then challenged me with this rhetorical question. ‘What is the point of going to the doctor, if you don’t do what he says?’

How often have you been to church, read parts of the Bible and heard sermons? Where is God in all your religious busyness? Did you know that you are on his doctor’s list, and that you have likely failed to turn up for many of the appointments he made for you? Will this year be any different, and if so, how? God wants to be involved with you to improve your health, and for that reason he has written out some prescriptions for you. You would be wise to pick up the medicine. What are these notes? Unlike the scribble of many medical doctors, God’s handwriting is easily read. If you read in Luke 14, verses 25-33, you will see what God prescribes for your life.

Three times in a small space, Jesus said “you cannot be my disciple”. It does not sound very inviting and is hardly the stuff for an altar call in much of present day evangelism. What was Jesus saying? If we try to find the answer to three questions, we will get close to what each of these “cannot” sayings is about.

In verses 25-26, we need to face the question which Jesus would put: How much do you love me? The scene looked as if it would be a very encouraging one for any preacher or teacher. There was a great crowd of people gathered, but Jesus knew that spiritual health is more than physical attendance on church. Was it not Chesterton who said: ‘Let your religion be a love affair?’ Your physical presence in church is in many ways the simplest and most robot-like aspect of the whole event.

To highlight the point he was to make, Jesus said something that sounds both strange and unsettling. Earlier on in the chapter, we read that he was inviting people to come, in a scene that bursts with welcome. Now he requires that we “hate” family. Seems hardly likely does it? In keeping with His Father’s law, Jesus requires us to love the Lord our God and our neighbour. What does He then mean here? It is a linguistic way of making the point of supreme loyalty. What is natural must give precedence to what is supernatural, and there will be no conflict between the loves, each in its own place. Love Jesus first and your love for your family will be enriched.

Our Creator God has made us capable of loving husband or wife, parents or children or grandchildren with loves that are different and yet perfectly compatible. So also in my relation with God, my love for Jesus will make my love for my wife, children, grandchildren all the richer. So, the answer to the first question about loving Jesus is that I love him first and foremost, and all other loves benefit from that.

In verse 27, we need to find an answer to another question from Jesus. This time we are asked How ready are you to live for me and to die for me? The reference to the ‘cross’ gives this a painful dimension. When we think of the cross, we think of some form of suffering, strictly, although not always so, associated with our belief in God. Notice too that Jesus makes it very personal. He talks about ‘your cross’ – not just his or someone else’s. Each of us needs to consider our own special involvement with ‘a cross’. It goes further than that. The cross was an instrument for death. A man did not go out carrying his cross and expect to come back alive. The cross points in one direction and to one goal – DEATH.

In a talk he gave to a large group of university students, John Piper, the American preacher, started with a gripping prayer in which he said ‘It is a fearful thing to call a generation to die. That is reminiscent of Bonhoeffer’s words. ‘When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.’ Is your life about Christ and living? If your life is a life without Christ, it is a mere unreal existence, from which you will wake one alarming day.

The Peace Corps had a slogan which said: If you are not doing something with your life, it does not matter how long it is. The significance of your life is not its length, but its love. Is your death about Christ and dying? So what is your life? It is one of two things – the end to a Christless existence here, or the transition from enjoying Christ here to a fuller enjoyment of him in heaven. It is worth remembering that you are not ready to die for Christ if you are not ready to live for him here. So, the answer to the second question about being ready to live and to die for Jesus must be that I can say with Paul, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

In verses 28-33, we need to face the third question. This time Jesus is asking, How much will you give up for me? Jesus used what might seem to be disconnected illustrations – a contractor building a tower, and a king going off to war. What is he getting at? The reference to the tower is very significant, because the tower was important part of the vineyard. On the lower floor, the workers in the vineyard would find shelter and also a place in which to rest and recover strength for more work. The upper floor provided a vantage point from which to look over the vineyard for its protection.

Now, if the builder cannot complete the tower, he will find himself being mocked by others. Is that not what the Gospel, the Lord’s provision and warnings are about. In Jesus Christ there is shelter, there is refreshing, and there is wholesome view of life. Without that we will have shame in the end. Give up hoping in your own attainments, and get your resources in Jesus Christ. In verse 31, the king finds himself at a serious and life-threatening disadvantage. Life has many conflicts, and the enemy of our souls has much more than we have. We cannot handle, sin and Satan and ungodly culture. King as I am, watched by my subjects, I need to put my pride in my pocket and admit I cannot go life alone.

There are terms of peace offered to me in Jesus, and I need give up my notions of self-sufficiency and my arrogant pride and come to him. Jim Elliott, the martyred missionary once summed up the life that is given over to Christ, in these memorable words, ‘He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose’.

The answer to the third question must be that I give up all, whatever it may be that would come between me and Jesus, so that He is my Chief Possession and I am His property. Life then is worth living, because He lives.