In the four Gospels the Lord Jesus at least four times called His disciples to renounce their soul-life, to put it to death, to follow Him. The Lord knew that renouncing the soul-life is an absolutely indispensable requirement if man is to follow Him, to attain to perfect status, to be like Him in serving men, and to do the will of God. Although the Lord Jesus spoke about the soul-life in all these four callings, He had a special emphasis in each. We know that the soul-life actually has various manifestations. Therefore, the Lord spoke about the soul-life with diverse emphases. Every disciple of the Lord must pay attention to the Lord's own words. The Lord's calling is that man should hand his soul-life over to the cross.
In Matthew 10:38 and 39 the Lord Jesus said, "And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his soul-life shall lose it, and he who loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it."
These verses call us to lose our soul-life for the Lord's sake, to hand this life over to the cross to be dealt with. Prior to these verses, the Lord Jesus spoke of how a man's foes are those of his own household, and how a son, for the Lord's sake, is estranged from his father, the daughter from her mother, and the daughter-in-law from her mother-in-law. Because God's will is at variance with the intention of our household, we must for the Lord's sake become estranged from our dearest ones. This is a cross. This is a crucifixion. According to our soul-life, we love those whom we love. We like to obey them, and we are willing to act according to their desire. When our loved ones are happy, are not our hearts happy with them? But here the Lord Jesus called us not to rebel against Him for the sake of loving man. When God's will conflicts with man's wish, although that person is the one whom we love the most and who loves us the most, and although ordinarily we would feel painful and be most reluctant to break his heart, for the Lord's sake we should take up the cross to put our affections to death.
This kind of calling of the Lord Jesus is to rid us of our natural affection. Thus, He said in verse 37, "He who loves father or mother above Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter above Me is not worthy of Me."
In Luke 14:26 and 27 it is written: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and moreover, even his own soul-life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." Matthew shows the believer the choice he should make concerning his own affection: he should love the Lord more than his household. Luke shows the attitude the believer should hold toward the love originating from his own soul-life: he should hate it. Actually, this means that the believer should not have love toward others simply because they are the ones he would naturally love. It is forbidden that I love others only because they are the ones I naturally love. Even those as dear as parents, brothers, wife, and children are all included in this forbidden list. This kind of natural love is out of the soul-life. This kind of natural love tends to cause one to be "glued" to others, to hold fast to those whom he loves, as well as to demand their love. The Lord considers this soul-life as something that should be delivered to death. Although we cannot see the Lord now and our hearts still prefer to follow our loved ones and our life demands that we have some loved ones, the Lord desires that we have a loving heart toward Him whom we have not seen. He wants us to reject the love which comes out of our nature. The Lord Jesus wants to rid us of all our direct love toward men. He does not want us to use our own love to love men. He desires us to love men not according to the natural liking in our soul. Such love of the natural man should be stopped. Now if we love others again, it is because we have a new relationship in the Lord. It is only because of the Lord that we love. It is not because of our own love for others that we love. We should, for the Lord's sake, receive from Him His love to love others. In short, our love towards others should be under the regulation of the Lord. If the Lord wants us to, we should love even our enemies. If the Lord does not want us to, we should not love even the dearest one in our household. The Lord does not want our hearts to be attached anywhere; He wants us to serve Him freely.