Matthew 8:18-22 18Now Jesus, when He saw the great throngs around Him, gave orders to cross to the other side [of the lake]. 19And a scribe came up and said to Him, Master, I will accompany You wherever You go. 20And Jesus replied to him, Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have lodging places, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. 21Another of the disciples said to Him, Lord, let me first go and bury [care for till death] my father. 22But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and leave the dead [in sin] to bury their own dead.
In Matthew 4:18-20 Jesus was just beginning His ministry 18As He was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He noticed two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, throwing a dragnet into the sea, for they were fishermen. 19And He said to them, Come after Me [as disciples–letting Me be your Guide], follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men! 20At once they left their nets and became His disciples [sided with His party and followed Him]. When Jesus called them and asked them to follow Him, Peter and Andrew immediately left their jobs, their home, and their family to become one of the disciples of Jesus. They didn’t stop and think about whether they should go, they just did it. They didn’t care what it cost. Something on the inside of them knew their destiny was in following Jesus.
The scribe came to Jesus and said, I’ll go with you wherever you go. Jesus basically told him, I don’t have a set place to lay my head. This isn’t going to be easy. You’re going to have to really want to follow me. Another man came and said, I’ll go with you, but my dad is dying and I need to stay with him until he passes away. Jesus said, don’t worry about your father, come and follow me. That may seem a little harsh, but following Jesus often requires sacrifice. We may have to sacrifice comfort, relationships, or other things to truly follow Him. In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus says 24Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also]. 25For whoever is bent on saving his [temporal] life [his comfort and security here] shall lose it [eternal life]; and whoever loses his life [his comfort and security here] for My sake shall find it [life everlasting]. If we are truly going to be followers of Christ, we must forget about our interests- what we want to do- and live our lives dying to our flesh and doing what He wants us to do. The benefit for us though, is by laying down our lives we put ourselves in position to receive everlasting life.
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