Count The Cost
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What would you think of a soldier who was expecting war to be so easy that he gets upset when he breaks a fingernail and deserts? When urging the crowds to count the cost before committing to him, Jesus spoke of a king going to war. To succeed in war one must steel oneself with the expectation that it will be tough.
Walking a tightrope might be easier than writing this webpage. Hopefully, from what I said earlier, you will understand how seriously I have failed you if I unintentionally foster a dread of God’s will. Just presuming that it will be unpleasant can cause serious problems. What makes the tightrope so precariously narrow, however, is that it is also my spiritual responsibility to steel you for the possibility that, although not guaranteed, God’s directions might occasionally seem unpleasant initially.
We need to long to do God’s will. And lest a closed mind causes us to mishear what God longs to tell us, we must be alert to all possibilities, which, of course, includes the likelihood that even in the short term God’s plans for us will exceed our fondest hopes. Nevertheless, much of Jesus’ teaching focuses on the cost, because he sought to instil in us the mental toughness required to be prepared for any eventuality. Without a willingness to embrace short-term pain for long-term joy, we Christians so easily fall into delusion. Should this happen we will be horrified when we face our Judge. Expecting to hear a “well done,” we would discover that despite all our prayer, good living, hard work and sacrifices we have missed God’s best and wasted our lives. We might make heaven but for all eternity we will suffer the loss.
Sometimes God’s answer is right in front of us, but we don’t recognize it because we are expecting the Lord to find some soft option to our crisis, when no such option is in his loving plans for us. Too often we overlook our Saviour's insistence that we take up our cross and follow the One who for the joy set before him dragged his cross to Golgotha where he was tortured to death.
Yes, Scripture says it was for the joy set before him that Jesus endured the agony of crucifixion (Hebrews 12:2). Our Saviour said that doing God’s will was his food(John 4:34). It was prophesied of him that he delights to do God’s will (Psalm 40:7-8; Hebrews 10:5-7). Nevertheless, in the garden of Gethsemane we find our perfect Role Model sweating, as it were, drops of blood; hoping against hope for a legitimate way of avoiding God’s will.
So let’s get real: if we are Christ like, there will be times when God’s will seems the most agonizing and undesirable option. At such times everything within us will seem to cry out against doing God’s will, and since we love God, we will be pressured to disobey and fool ourselves into thinking we are still obeying him.
God’s goal for us is to become champions. Could our goal sometimes be an easy few years, regardless of how much it eats into our eternal reward? The glory of Christ’s champions is, through him, to do things that seem impossible.
Jesus kept saying we must deny ourselves. Peter said, “ . . . since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin (1 Peter 4:1). The parable of the sower refers to those who fall away when the going gets tough (Matthew 13:20-22).
If, for the One who gave his all for us, we are unwilling to embrace severe hardship, the possibility of falling into self-deception will skyrocket when obeying Christ becomes costly. If so, instead of having ears attuned to the Spirit’s whispers we will have, to use Paul’s words, ears itching to hear what we want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).
When writing of those whose “god is their stomach,” Paul seems to be referring to people who thought they were Christians (Philippians 3:19). No matter how Christian they look, and how convinced they are that they are serving God, their real god – the one they serve and let determine the course of their lives and their eternal destiny – is not the wise, loving Lord, but their own passions and cravings.
Romans 16:18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.
There are those who seem indistinguishable from Christians when they can have a cozy life while acting godly. It is only in situations where they cannot have both their own way and God’s way that their real god is exposed. Even then, they will be so desperate to have both their fill of ease and the temporal status and eternal comfort of being Christians that their minds will buzz with excuses and rationalizations to the point of utter self-deception. Despite putting their own interests foremost, they convince themselves they are serving the real God.
These good people can be so anxious to have both God and their sin that they become the most devout non-Christians on the planet. We each have the potential to end up so sold-out to God that we match the Jews who went to extremes in keeping themselves ceremonially pure while finalizing the murder of their Messiah (John 18:28). We could find all sorts of Scriptures to confirm the correctness of our actions, just like Satan found Scripture to prove the correctness of his arguments when tempting the Son of God to sin (Matthew 4:5-6).
Once a person decides he or she wants to sin, the human capacity for self-deception knows no bounds. It is not the slightest surprising to find gay churches, embezzling pastors and adulterous or even incestuous Christian leaders.
We could find ourselves following not our crucified Lord but Ananias and Sapphira; struck dead for thinking they were having the best of both worlds by being hailed for their devotion, while secretly indulging themselves ( Acts 5:1-11). The easy way leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14; Luke 13:24). If we want both our Lord and the easy life we can find ourselves with the throng on Judgment Day who will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not . . .” and will be stunned to hear those terrifying words, “ I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (Matthew 7:22-23). As Jesus says:
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. . . .”
Elsewhere the tragedy is described this way:
Proverbs 30:12 [There are] those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth In the words of the prophet:
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? No wonder the psalmist prayed:
Psalms 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me . . .