What virtue is the cornerstone of discipleship? Love. Jesus preached about it, lived it, and summarized his greatest commandment featuring it. Love is in our DNA. To follow Jesus, then, is to follow the path of love. While this may appear to be an attractive and easy option, it most assuredly is not. Authentic love always comes with sacrifice. It is the complete giving of oneself to another. The sacrificial character of love always requires that we leave something aside and pursue something else. This is at the heart of self-denial. Love asks us to make choices that are often difficult.

Thomas Edison, the famous inventor of the early 20th century, is truly a humble man at heart. This inventor of the phonograph and incandescent lamp once said to his assistant: People call me a great inventor. I’m no inventor worth talking about When I think that I can’t even build the simplest being that could think and speak or at least do something on his own, I know that there is only one true inventor. At that, he pointed his finger heavenward.

Jesus is making His way toward Jerusalem, the dream of every male Jews to visit one day because it is the center of their religion; and where the Temple is. The Psalms often sing the words of Yahweh: I will set my king on Zion, my holy mountain, fairest of all the heights is the joy of all the earth. The only Temple of the Jewish religion stands on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem, and people from all over the world long to go there to worship and offer sacrifices to the one and true God. And Jesus heads to Jerusalem one day, He would sacrifice His life there.

I come to set the earth on fire. Fire symbolizes many things: First, there are destructive fires that bring a lot of damage to property, homes, buildings, and other structures. There are forest fires that can burn hundreds of thousands of acres and cause damage to livestock; and wildlife. We remember the 19 Arizona Granite Hot Shot who lost their lives in the Yarnell fire of 2013. Second, the benefits of fire for cooking food for the hungry, providing heat for those in the cold, purifying waters, and giving light to homes where there is no electricity. Lastly, fire ignites combustion engines that help transport people and material goods. All these are examples of the literal sense where the fire is applicable, but the Lord speaks of fire symbolically.