“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28)
The closest analogy the world has to this verse that comes to mind at the moment is “Marry in haste, repent in leisure.”
There seems to be few people in our days who sit down, use deductive reasoning skills, calculate with forethought the path they would like to traverse over the next few years, and then begin to attempt to accomplish that which they have determined for themselves.
In the nation that I live in the dropout rate for college students is nearly sixty percent; the massive amount of money they borrow for this endeavor remains with them for many years though. They did not count the cost. This is, in part, the plan of our adversary wrought by men who have determined that financial bondage is the form of manipulation they desire upon the masses.
“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” (Prov. 22:7)
How many of you who claim to be born-again realize that you are slaves to the Lord Jesus Christ? The cost, this price is rarely heard from behind the pulpit today, and it is even rarer for those who witness to the lost to mention this truth. The people are told they are loved, which is indeed true, but not that they are required, not asked politely by a begging God, but required to serve, and to do so willingly as profitable servants.
They are told that Jesus is their friend, a close, personal friend who is there to provide all their needs and a great many of their wants, like a faithful neighbor who can be called upon at any time of the day or night. Not that they are commanded to be servants, which in nearly every occurrence in the Scriptures can be translated as the word slaves.
But that word is too harsh, too demeaning, and calls up thoughts of complete subservience without hesitation to one Lord, one Master, one King, with no allegiance to anyone or anything else. Even our own desires are to be cast away and His will is to be our only desire.
Many, if not most, never have these truths revealed to them initially, and when they come to the realization of them, well, that is why many fall away.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20)
Repeat the offered words in haste, repent, in some form and minutely at that, in leisure.
How can anyone count the cost if the entire price is not revealed openly initially? Can you understand the truth of Matthew 22:14 in the hearts of so many today who say they know God, who say they love the Lord Jesus Christ?
“For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Serve a little, and only in a manner that in their own minds causes them to believe that He is their friend, but never entertaining that thought that they are slaves, that their life is no longer their own, that they can chose their own path, as long as it intersects the one the Almighty has set for them occasionally.
The cost of being called His friend, of accepting His love is one they are willing to pay, but the cost of considering themselves slaves is contrary to all they hold dear.
If you are one who enjoys the commandment, who finds great joy in humility, who reaches out to the lost, when you speak to them reveal this price to them, the price of being a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God. Without revealing this cost, they may become nothing more than a member of a community clubhouse that meets once a week in a building with a cross in it somewhere.
