Did You Even Consider The Cost?

Today, I want to take a break from the discussion of the trees which I believe wise persons understood and enjoyed, to discuss cost counting. I made this decision because we seem to be a generation that gets bored easily and thinks it is cool; for children to get bored easily is understandable but as we come to maturity, we must learn to endure even when we are bored. When we become adults, it is no longer okay to just “stand up and leave” because one is bored. We have to learn to sit through it and only people that know to sit through it, have the opportunity to count he cost. The world does all it can to encourage us to “just act” without counting the cost. Spontaneity is heavily encouraged as being cool. They say you need to be spontaneous to be fun loving persons; they argue that people who think things through are often boring. No one wants to be boring so spontaneity is becoming “the thing”.  Counting the cost for anything takes “thinking time” when one has to be still even when you prefer to be on the go. Whilst it is true that we can sometimes “overly think on things’” the word of God does encourage us to think on the cost of our decisions which also includes the consequences, before we make them and that notwithstanding that one heard from God and/or that the decision made is a commitment to God. Hearing from God is not an excuse for not counting the cost. God wants us to know that every decision comes with its responsibilities which we must be ready to own if we make the decision. Obviously, God wants us to come to maturity which requires us to think through our decisions carefully.

 

Proverb 20: 25 “Don’t trap yourself by making a rash promise to God and only later counting the cost.”

 

Our commitment to God is not without its cost. Clearly discipleship cost something which requires one to deny self. There is a cross to pick up which can only be picked after one has denied self. God does not deceive nor is He cunning so He has put out the cost of being His disciple and desires that we consider it before we make the decision to follow Him. Onus is therefore, upon persons leading people to Christ to let them know there is a cost instead of making them feel that all it takes is for one to “get out of the pew and walk to the altar” which is in truth, meant to be an outward expression of an inward decision. The problem with believers today is that many of us walked to the altar without making the decision that precedes the act. Interestingly, you don’t have to be able to pay the required price; all you need to do is make the decision to pay and heaven joins with you to facilitate and/or enable that. One of the challenges of our faith today is that there are a lot of believers who refuse to accept that there is a cost. They came to Christ believing that they do nothing in return for the love that God has shown in allowing His son die or Christ showed in offering Himself. The truth about love is that it ought to be returned.

 

2 Samuel 24: 24 “But the King replied to Araunah, ‘no, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing,”

 

Luke 14: 27 – 28 “And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost.”

 

We seem to have a big problem; we have made ourselves a generation of believers that hate to think things through and think on cost. Not only are we not willing to pay the price for anything, we refuse to accept that “there is a cost” to bear with our decisions. We insist that such responsibilities must not be made ours. We prefer to think it is someone else’s job or even God’s which makes it even easier so that we can blame God if something goes wrong. We lie so convincingly to ourselves that we convince ourselves that God spoke to us when He didn’t; It’s just that we won’t ‘own’ the cost. The truth is, if it isn’t God, the fact that we lie convincingly to our self will not change that fact neither will it make everything okay without you paying that price. God makes “thinking it through our job so it is not His. Indeed He expects that people should think things through otherwise He wouldn’t make the comment in the scripture below. There are consequences, it is not an excuse that you didn’t consider them. Even when we have to make decisions in the moment, we must think fast. It always helps if one is in communion with God so that the Holy Spirit helps such persons and it is just makes decision making easier when one is able to lean on Him.

 

Luke 14: 28b “For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it.”

 

The bible says we must not be unaware of the devices of the devil. Satan has all sorts of crafty ways with which he lures the saints to that place where he attempts to ruin us so we must sensitive to that reality. Wrong decision making parameters can ruin a life so bad that even the devil will be grateful.