So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:33 ESV)

Have you ever thought to yourself: what if I give up everything? Moreover, can I give up everything? Our maybe even just somethings? If Jesus said this to me, I would cry. Most things I can live without, but if I had to give up my phone or my computer, I may call that a deal-breaker. In fact, you may even say that those things that we hang on to, define us. As a result, they are deal-breakers.

I’m sure you have deal-breakers in your life as well. Whether it’s your phone, car, job, home, relationships, coffee, etc; we all have something, when pushed, that would make us seriously question whether we would give it up and follow Jesus.

None of us are really that extreme, are we? I know I’m not. But Jesus wants us to be extreme, extremely in love with him so that we would be defined by love–his love. His love that saves by grace for people who don’t deserve it.

I want us to consider the deal-breakers we have in life that stop us from wholeheartedly following Jesus and ask yourself: are these things really worth it? Does our salvation and our relationship with God amount to less than our deal-breaker? Jesus wants us to pursue him with everything we have, and if we can’t give up something we have for him, we may lose out on everything we have to offer God in our lives.

Do all people matter to you? Better question, do any people matter to you? Of course some people matter to you, but we don’t often live like they matter. If they did matter, wouldn’t we pray more for them? Then why don’t we pray for them on a regular basis?

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people….” (1 Timothy 2:1 ESV)

Here’s a difficult statement to swallow: all people matter enough to be prayed for. The Bible is talking genuine, get into a quiet place, type of prayer.

This is the genuine type of prayer that reveals whether or not you are filled with love for God’s people. Paul, who wrote this, believes that Christ followers should be praying for all people genuinely, when they don’t have to, when they have other things to do, when it is a lot easier praying for other things and for yourself.

This passage continues to say that we should pay particular concern in our prayers for those who seem unworthy of our prayers, they too, warrant our attention and genuine prayers.

All of that being said, we need to pray that the love and grace of Jesus Christ fill all people. All people need the love of God and we need to pray they choose to accept that love. We need to pray that their lives be filled with that love.

We need to pray that they embody that love. We need to pray with that love.

Your greatest work of faith for me and you is to genuinely pray for all people– the people you interact with; the people you pass by on the street; the people whose views you disagree with; ALL people in and around your life and then some.

Let’s walk with Jesus with an posture of prayer, ready to pray for everyone.

Sometimes I just say things that gets me into trouble. When I think about what I said and why I said them, I have no rational reason for saying those things except that I’m an idiot and that wasted time by saying it. Has this ever happened to you?

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5-6 ESV)

The Apostle Paul has two words of advice for us regarding what we say and when we say it. First, make best use of your time. Second, be gracious and respond accordingly.

These two nuggets of advice are not overtly profound, nor are they unique. We have heard these things before, but have we ever connected the two ideas together so we would understand that if the point of conversation is to bring the best out of an individual, then we must make the best of the time that we have with them? The truth of the matter is: our words matter and how we say them matters and when we say them matters.

Every conversation should be held with the intention to bring out the best in the person you are conversing with. The reason being that it is an opportunity for somebody who may not have a relationship with Jesus may have an opportunity to get to know him and therefore be changed by it. You have heard stories about how people’s conversations with them changed their lives; well it’s time to start changing people’s lives by speaking with them as the last opportunity to bring out a better version of them.

We are given the circles of influence and the opportunity for conversation for the purposes of God. Let us treat each opportunity as such and speak graciously and intelligently to people.

You know people who are busy by themselves? Like there are more fires to put out that you started than there is time in the world and things to do. Maybe that’s you. You aren’t busy taking care of things, you are busy doing things.

Call it procrastinating, or poor planning, or bad time management, it doesn’t matter what you call it, simply put it is distracted and it makes you a busybody.

Nothing is accomplished except you are doing things. At least if you are legitimately busy taking care of things the list of things goes down. But when you are a busybody, you are just chasing your own tail in a circle.

For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. (2 Thessalonians 3:11 ESV)

The Apostle Paul compares busybodies to idle people or lazy people. You are a busybody and meddler if you got so much going on in your life that it starts to ooze into the lives of the people around you.

There is a difference between busy people who have things to take care of and busybodies that cause things to be dealt with. When we are busy we can stay focused on what matters most and manage the tasks in our lives.

However, when we are lazy and lose sight of the work we are called to do, we begin meddling where we don’t belong and as such we miss out on doing what we know is best because we are dealing with the circumstances that we meddled in.

We want to be busy with work in our lives. It keeps us grounded in faith, able to see why God is working and how God is working.

When we deviate from busy doing work by doing busywork, we miss out on God’s power in our lives. Let’s not be busybodies.

The golden rule is good, it dictates a reciprocity in the way an individual goes about his or her business. God’s law, goes beyond the golden rule in that it tells individuals they must do better than they should expect to receive in return, even to the point of death because in doing so God can be glorified through it; and thus can be considered God’s Royal Law. It is what moved Jesus to die horrifically on the cross for undeserved people like you and me.

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. (James 4:11 ESV)

James, the half-brother of Jesus, and devout  follower of Christ, tells us that we must go beyond ordinary relationships with people. It is easy to rule out other people based on what they did or how they acted. It is very easy to see yourself as better than them.

In fact, what James is saying is that anybody can discount other people based on some criteria of deserving or another. Let me give you some examples of what this looks like: Tattoos, some people are outcast and judged horribly because of their tattooes; fashion, or lack thereof– people dressed in ripped jeans or some other clothing not cool in the moment.

The law given to the people of Israel through Moses or any other religious tradition or rule we have derived our judgments from makes it easy for any of us to open the Bible into the old testament and discount people based on whatever random criterion we find.

But if we do that, then what causes us not to be discounted in the same way?

Moreover, doesn’t that make God look stupid for saying He is love except when people do x, y, and z? Of course it does. Yet, this is how we do.

We forget that rules and laws were written for the purpose of fulfilling the Royal Law (to love God with all your heart, mind and soul; and to love your neighbor as yourself).

Discounting other people based on some misaligned criteria as you randomly choose and pick like a flavor of ice cream discount the purpose of God giving us law– to create a society to love Him and other people like He does.

As people redeemed by Jesus, the Son of God, we must not discount the purpose of Christ’s sacrifice for us. It was so that we can live under the Royal Law by loving people who don’t deserve it or warrant a second glance from anybody. We love like this because the King of the universe loves us in this way.