COUNTING THE COST PART 2

A number of people assume that people they consider “spiritual” are not really “earthly” useful to them since they are full of the word of God. Such people tend to think that the word of God is only good to deal with “heaven or heavenly related matters” so that in their opinion, the word is unable to provide the guidance they require for daily living.  To them it is irrelevant in dealing with real challenges; when in reality they do not understand it and so, are unable to receive and/or apply the wisdom therein.

Luke 14: 31 “Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10, 000 could defeat the 20, 000 soldiers marching against him? And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away.”

I am still writing today, about the wisdom of counting the cost. If we don’t learn to count the cost before actualizing our decisions, we would always appear to be in difficult situations and God would appear to be silent. The reason being that we would believe we have a spiritual problem, and some may truly have them, and so keep praying and casting out demons; when in reality, we should be praying for grace to be more responsible because the root cause of our problem would be our consistent refusal to count the cost of actualizing decisions or if you like, our recurring irresponsibility.

From what the above scripture says, you don’t go to war – spiritual or physical based on emotional reasons. You don’t fight with your friends or enemies just because you are angry. It is okay for example to be angry but don’t’ make a decisions to enter battle just because you are angry. You have to count the cost thinking about your options, the weight of your opponent and the consequences, whether you win or lose; before you make that decision. The same way we must count the cost before we commit to anything else particularly a lifelong thing.   

God is advising that notwithstanding the fact that you feel angry enough to fight, you have to be controlled enough to still think so that if you realize that your opponent is stronger, or much better prepared, withdraw from going into the battle. It is never too late to withdraw. Now sometimes, when we manage to withdraw from going into a battle, we think we have done our best because our egos already feel wounded that we had to withdraw. 

The scripture above suggest that even after you have withdrawn from the battle, you will then need to humble yourself further to pacify your opponent: you live to prepare to fight another day. However, a lot of us would insist on fighting and say that God has not told us to stop. Did He tell you to start in the first place? Usually, we are just making excuses for our pride. We even try to make people see that we have good reasons for electing to fight but this scripture does not say make your decision to fight based on the strength of your reasons. 

Whatever your reasons are for fighting, if you are prudent, you would foresee the consequences and then make up your mind whether or not you need to hide.  God does not need to speak again when the counsel is already made available in His word. Don’t deceive yourself by saying you did not hear God before you started out, He already spoke to you in His word.