Luke 14:28
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, sit not down first, and count the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?”
What of Today’s Verse…
Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years in Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary – the pivot on which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say – “This man began to build, and was not able to finish.”
The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27 and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom, He has done everything. “If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . He cannot be My disciple.” Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.
All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own? These are days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.
Words of Wisdom
Direction…
When you know where you’re headed, you know what to do next.
Imagine starting off from New York to drive to Los Angeles. On the second day out, the alternator on your car goes out. With a clear sense of direction, knowing exactly where you’re going — Los Angeles — you know precisely what to do next. Get the alternator fixed and get on with your trip.
But what if you didn’t have such a clear sense of direction? What if you had started out, just kind of thinking that it might be nice to drive west? Then, when the alternator goes out, you don’t really know what to do. Take a bus back home? Stay here for a while and look for a job? Is the car really worth repairing? Maybe you should just get another one. Perhaps going west wasn’t such a good idea after all.
On a daily basis, life presents us with distractions, obstacles, and problems. When we have no direction, we dwell on these problems and distractions to the point that they become our reality.
With a strong, clear sense of direction, however, the obstacles and distractions are merely stepping stones on the way to the ultimate goal. Know where you’re going, and each thing that happens along the way, whether “good” or “bad,” becomes a means of getting there.
