As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “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.” (Luke 9:57-58)
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to dig into this last section of Luke 9, as we read about three different people’s response to the cost of following Jesus.
This week, we see that someone came to Jesus saying they would follow Him wherever He went. This person came on their own accord and had a desire to follow Jesus. Their claim is a big one because they didn’t just say they wanted to follow Him, they said wherever He went.
Now maybe they had full understanding of what they were saying, but it’s likely they did not because becoming a disciple of a rabbi in those days usually didn’t require all that it would require to actually follow Jesus wherever He went. But Jesus makes it very clear what the cost would be for this person – a loss of typical life comforts.
When Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” He is literally saying He doesn’t have a home or bed. He’s not going out to do ministry and then coming back home and putting up His feet at night. He traveled around, basically camping out as the Spirit led Him from town to town in His ministry. And when you think about it, Jesus was no stranger to lack of typical home-like comfort because even as a baby, just as the Christmas carol puts it, there was no crib for a bed. The Son of Man had humble comforts at best, and any follower of His should be content with the same if it comes to that.
Following Jesus Today
Now in today’s culture, we don’t generally see homeless missionaries in the way we think of homeless. However, if we are going to choose to follow Jesus wherever He goes, being willing to be sent wherever the Spirit leads, then that very well may require leaving “home” and other homelike comforts behind. In some cases, this could be extreme if God calls you to live and minister in the jungles of a far-off country. Or it could look something like leaving a comfortable sized house for a small apartment in your new mission field.
Regardless of the actual housing conditions, the focus here is that following Jesus isn’t a glamorous endeavor, and comfort and luxury aren’t guarantees when following Jesus.
Unfortunately, there are false teachers in our culture who preach that by following Jesus you can have health, wealth, and a prosperous life and go as far as to claim that God wants all these things for you. By Jesus’ own words here, this is clearly not true. Our heavenly Father has indeed blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places according to the riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:3), but those are spiritual riches, not earthly.
In Matthew 6, Jesus said not to store treasure here on earth, but to store it in heaven, so the claims of health, wealth, and prosperity doctrine are clearly not biblical and are earthly minded. We, as followers of Jesus, are to set our minds on the things above, not on things that are on earth (Colossians 3:2).
Most of us in American culture are pretty comfortable with the houses we live in, so this can be harder to relate to. Yet, let’s imagine for a moment that God called you to a mission field in a third world country, where the comforts you currently have would be gone. Would you go?
A Heart Matter
This is more of a heart thing than it is even a reality for most – you may never be called to serve in a place where you don’t have a place to lay your head the way Jesus lived during His earthly ministry, but would you? Is your heart in a place to truly follow Jesus WHEREVER He goes regardless of whether that would cost a place to lay your head?
We are spiritual sojourners in this life and should not get too comfortable with the comforts of this life, lest we become complacent in our willingness to follow Jesus wherever. I encourage you to take some time to really think about your response to those questions and check the condition of your heart towards this. If you find that there is hesitation to follow wherever with complete abandonment, ask God to help you adjust your perspective.
I don’t know what your future holds, but I pray that you would always have a heart to follow Jesus wherever He may lead you.