26 If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14 NWT)
Jesus is using comparative speech. You must hate your brother more than you hate Jesus because you must love God more than you love your brother. Because loving God is the first law and loving your borother is the second. It is that simple.
Jesus explains it more clearly in Matthew 10...
37 He that has greater affection for father or mother than for me is not worthy of me; and he that has greater affection for son or daughter than for me is not worthy of me.
38 And whoever does not accept his torture stake and follow after me is not worthy of me.
39 He that finds his soul will lose it, and he that loses his soul for my sake will find it (Matthew 10 NWT)
But what does he mean: He that finds his soul will lose it? Well the only way to find your soul is to be baptised so as to have the promise of a non adamic soul or to actually get the blessing of a non adamic soul. And the only way to get a non adamic soul is to lose you adamic soul. So he that finds his non adamic soul, loses his adamic soul. That indeed is what has happened to everyone presently in the two true religions of the LWs and the reappointed Laodicea.
How about this one?
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples: If anyone wants to come after me, let him disown himself and pick up his torture stake and continually follow me.
25 For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it; but whoever loses his soul for my sake will find it. (Matthew 16 NWT)
Here Jesus means anyone who values his soul more than the torture stake of the Christ will lose it. He does not mean that we should stand in front of a bus or refuse hospital treatment. We should strive to save our souls for just as we love our brother we should love ourselves. But that is the second law. We should love God first. So the emotional, psychological, financial or physical torture stake of the Christ must be loved more than the soul. That is a hard one to do. Peter failed at it 3 times in one night.
27 Whoever is not carrying his torture stake and coming after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14 NWT)
We WILL all receive some form of torture/testing from family members or friends or enemies or the state or employers or employees or false churches and sometimes even from true churches. That is inevtiable. But actually it is desirable to God if the lack of comfort arises from following Jesus. Peter explains...
18 Let house servants be in subjection to [their]
owners with all [due] fear, not only to the good and reasonable, but also to those hard to please.
19 For if someone, because of conscience toward God, bears up under grievous things and suffers unjustly, this is an agreeable thing.
20 For what merit is there in it if, when you are sinning and being slapped, you endure it? But if, when you are doing good and you suffer, you endure it, this is a thing agreeable with God.
21 In fact, to this [course] you were called, because even Christ suffered for you, leaving you a model for you to follow his steps closely.
22 He committed no sin, nor was deception found in his mouth.
23 When he was being reviled, he did not go reviling in return. When he was suffering, he did not go threatening, but kept on committing himself to the one who judges righteously. (1 Peter 2 NWT)
Try to avoid and escape persecution of course, but not at the expense of compromising true worship. Remember these two scriptures...
13 No temptation has taken you except what is common to men. But God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted/tested [peiraizw] beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation/testing he will also make the way out in order for you to be able to endure it. (1 Corinthians 10 NWT).
24 By faith Moses, when grown up, refused to be called the son of the daughter of Pharaoh,
25 choosing to be ill-treated with the people of God rather than to have the temporary enjoyment of sin,
26 because he esteemed the reproach of the Christ as riches greater than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked intently toward the payment of the reward. (Hebrews 11 NWT)