Dear Sisters,
Good morning! There seems to be a lot of countdowns going on lately. We’ve been counting down the days until school starts and the kick-off meetings to our local GEMS season. We understand countdowns and what it means to count the cost of school supplies for the kids. Yet, the most important cost we need to examine in our lives is the cost of being His disciple. Let’s think on that together this week.
COUNT THE COST
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?
Luke 14:28
As middle daughter Stephanie and I were unloading her groceries into the pantry of a small on campus apartment she’s sharing with five other girls this school year she told her friends, “I’ve got food! I figured I better stock up while my mom was here with the checkbook!”
They laughed and identified. With tuition, books, plus the responsibility of purchasing and preparing their own food, they were indeed counting the cost.
When Jesus taught about counting the cost of being a disciple He compared it to tower building and military strategy. “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way of and will ask for terms of peace” (Luke 14:28-32).
To be Jesus’ disciples we must also count the cost. True disciples that are feeding the fire do not coast into the Kingdom or compartmentalize their love for God into a 15-minute devotional time in the morning and their service into an every other week GEMS Club night.
To be a passionate disciple of Jesus comes with conditions. Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27).
“Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple” (Luke 14:33, MSG).
Oswald Chambers wrote, “The only men and women our Lord will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately, and with great devotion – those who have a love for Him that goes far beyond any of the closest relationships on earth. The conditions are strict, but they are glorious.”
PASSION Step: List the people, plans, and possessions that are dearest to you. Do you love these things less than Christ?
Our LORD was not referring here to a cost which we have to count, but to a cost which He has already counted.
Oswald Chambers
Grace and peace,
Lenae
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