COUNT THE COST

“WHOEVER DOES NOT CARRY HIS OWN CROSS AND COME AFTER ME CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE.  FOR WHICH ONE OF YOU, WHEN HE WANTS TO BUILD A TOWER, DOES NOT FIRST SIT DOWN AND CALCULATE THE COST TO SEE IF HE HAS ENOUGH TO COMPLETE IT?  OTHERWISE, WHEN HE HAS LAID A FOUNDATION AND IS NOT ABLE TO FINISH, ALL WHO OBSERVE IT BEGIN TO RIDICULE HIM, SAYING, ‘THIS MAN BEGAN TO BUILD AND WAS NOT ABLE TO FINISH.”  LUKE 14-27:30

Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee.  He said to Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.  Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.” (Matthew 4: 19-20).  The same event was repeated down the shoreline with James and his brother, John.  It says of these two sons of Zebedee, “Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.” (Matthew 4:22).  These disciples left everything to follow Jesus:

·         their  families

·         their homes

·         their businesses

·         their course in life

To be a disciple of Christ today, we are to learn from their example and do the same.  When Jesus stated, “Follow Me” is literally translates “Keep on following Me”.  It is an ongoing command.  It is a decision for a lifetime, not just a moment in time.

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, we are given forgiveness of sins and eternal life, which are both free gifts from God.  Many times our response is an emotional one that lasts a brief span in time.  But Jesus wants us to keep on keeping on with our wills and with our lives to follow Him, grow in Him,  and serve Him.  At the moment of our rebirth, He also lavishes us with His Holy Spirit and with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places to equip us to run the race each and every day afterwards.  Although He has freely blessed us with His love and His abundant grace, He asks something  from us in return:  to love Him with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength.  He wants us to love Him above everything else:  relationships, plans, dreams, directions, goals, wealth, comfort.  He wants us to say “Yes Lord” no matter what the cost. 

This is the lesson Jesus teaches us in Luke 9:23: “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”    Notice that He says this to “them all”, not just a select few.  Notice also that He says you must take up your cross, not someone else’s cross. 

What is my cross? Many times it is something of this world that is a blessing, but it gets in the way of my first love.  Later, in the same chapter of Luke, three would be followers give excuses or walk away because the price is too high that Jesus is asking.  They each bring up their own crosses: comforts of home, comforts of wealth and riches, comforts of family.  They counted the cost and found it too costly.  Jesus could see through to each of their individual hearts and knew what the stumbling block would be to follow Him and serve Him above all else.

Is He asking YOU to give up the security of your home?  Probably not, but if so, would you sell it and give some away to the poor who have no shelter or place to lay their head?  Is He asking YOU to give up wealth and riches?  Probably not, but if so, would you sell your investments on Wall Street and invest instead in your church and ministries around the world that are serving Him?  Is He asking YOU to leave your family, like Abraham did?  Probably not, but if so, would you say goodbye to your mom, dad, brother, sister, and say yes to the mission field because the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few?

“Jesus calls us to abandon our own agendas, what we have deemed will please and fulfill us, so that we can embrace the kind and quality of life that only he gives.  This is not about adding Jesus to the life we are living.  This is about making Jesus our life.  This is about putting our plans for our lives to death so that the abundant life he offers has room to take root and grow.  And death is always painful.  This is not an extreme brand of discipleship only for go-getters.  This is the call for everyone who chooses to be a follower of Jesus.”  --Nancy Guthrie, The One Year Book of Hope.

 It cost Him everything.  Why do we think it costs us nothing?

 “Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.  Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.  It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.  It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because  it justifies the sinner.  Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘Ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.  Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.  Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”—Diettrich Bonhoeffer,  The Cost of Discipleship.

How about you?  Are you a true follower? Are you counting the cost daily to lay down your life and follow Jesus?  Are you running the race out of love and devotion for what He has done for you?  Are you obedient to the call?  Or are you giving excuses why you cannot?  Calculate the cost, and then do it anyway.  The richness of a life filled with Christ’s love and walk with Him is worth more than anything of this world that you could ever sacrifice.