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Count the Cost
"One thing thou lackest...come, take up the cross, and follow Me."
Mark 10:21
"The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself - a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute "go" of abandonment to Jesus.
"'Then Jesus beholding him loved him.' The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are "soft" with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"'One thing thou lackest...' The only "good thing" from Jesus Christ's point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
"'Sell whatsoever thou hast...' I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul (only one thing saves a man - absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) - but in order to follow Jesus. 'Come, and follow Me.' And the road is the way He went."
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, September 28
Why do we want something other than what God wants? When did we decide that there was something better, that we could come up with a plan, a method, a design that supercedes our Maker's? We spend countless hours on all sorts of activities, thinking that by offering our religious services God will somehow be pleased with our effort. What if He were to look upon these things, and in looking with His piercing insight, grant us the slightest glimpse of His perspective? Do you suppose we would finally begin seeing something that is far different than what we thought we saw?
"If any [man] come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost...So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple"(Luke 14:26-33, emphasis added).
Count the cost. When Jesus Christ was calling to Himself whosoever would come He made this awe-inspiring, nay, fear-inducing declaration. It was a command that would forever drive a nail in the coffin of every right we ever had to ourselves, our lives, our dreams, our ambitions, our hopes, our demands. The cost to those initial hearers of this tremendous word was EVERYTHING; and the cost to us is the same. This is what was required by the original twelve, the subsequent 120 in the Upper Room, the 3,000 following Pentecost, the man named Saul of Tarsus; and this is what is required of us, the church of Jesus Christ, today.
It has become so easy for us to pray, asking God to speak a word to us. We even say things like, "it doesn't matter how You speak, by whom You speak, or when You speak, just speak to me." But when the Almighty does speak we become bothered by what He says and bothered by the instrument He utilized in the delivery of His message to us, and this irritation is evidenced by our refusal to receive His Word. Oh, we might pay lip service to Him when He does speak, but we prove ourselves the obverse side of obedient disciples when we effectually hear but do not do. Yes, that is it, we are hearers of the word, but not doers of the word.
What if God chose to speak to you, pastor, brother, sister, Christian worker, through a thoroughly disadvantaged man, or maybe a youth of no seeming importance, a word that rocked your theology to its very core? Could you receive it? Or would you count the cost, and determine that the price is too high to pay to hear and obey that word which has issued forth from the very mouth of God Almighty through an instrument that shames your spiritual stature?
There are times when the authority from which we choose to operate is resolutely opposed to the moral qualities of life in the Holy Spirit. We somehow think that if we shout a little louder, stand a little taller, get our name out to a few more churches, thereby becoming recognized by the church at large, we finally have the platform from which to deliver the oracles of God. But such "oracles" were never received in the secret place, but too many times in prayerless meetings with fellow leaders, our church staff, our "executive" board, maybe even from our personal pet peaves that we think must irk God something aweful because of how such things so bother our flesh. We march out to the podium, delivering an impassioned message to the congregation, calling more attention to the sweat running down our furled brow than to the beating of God's heart for His church. We have no authority, because we refuse to abide in the Ultimate Authority. But to abide in this Authority requires a humility that will break every last bone in the spiritual legs we once stood on; it will crush the pomp protruding from our lofty look; it will throw our reputations right under the feet of the very men and women before whom we would so desire to be held in esteem.
"The highest authority conceivable for a man is that of a holy character. The holiest character is the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore His statements are never dogmas, they are declarations...There is no argument or discussion in what He says, it is not a question of the insight of a marvellous man, but a question of speaking with authority. 'He taught them as one having authority' (Matthew 7:29)..." (If Thou Wilt Be Perfect, Oswald Chambers).
Holiness is what is required. But this holiness is something altogether different from what we account as holiness. We look on the outward appearance. "How often do you attend church? Do you watch rated "R" movies? Do you pay your tithes? How are you serving the local body? Do you have a regular devotional time?" There is a quality of life in true holiness that shames every arrogant answer to the above queries. This holiness is not one of doing, it is one of being. "Be ye holy..." (1Peter 1:16). That is the command, not "Do ye holiness." For out of that true being shall flow all true doing, as God has said, "Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I [am] the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I [am] the LORD which sanctify you" (Leviticus 20:8). "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (James 1:22). This is a word spoken to those who have been begotten by the Spirit of God into an entirely new life, one of a perpetual offering unto God as His firstfruits (see James 1:18). Our part is to consecrate our holy selves unto God to whatever end He shall see fit. Then shall we bear His image; then shall we wait and watch until we hear the Voice of our Good Shepherd; then shall we become doers of the word that we hear. Then maybe, just maybe, God will entrust us with the incontrovertible utterances of His Holy Spirit, the delivery of His eternal Word.
But we have been no better than the devils who believe in proper doctrine, and tremble (see James 2:19). In fact, I suspect our state is much worse, in that we hold fast our orthodoxy, clinging to our dogma in a swift descent to hell, or at the very best to a salvation that barely escapes the flames of eternal judgement, because we do not know how to tremble any more at the Word of Yahweh. We have forgotten that our worship of God is to be offered with a holy fear, our rejoicing in God is to be coupled with trembling (Psalm 2:11). Our current condition is dangerously near that of the church of Ephesus which tested and rejected false apostles, refused false doctrines, and maintained a show of works that the world would readily acknowledge as worthy of praise. Although, I dare say we could scarcely discern the true apostles or prophets from the false any more, calling the false true and scorning the real spokesmen as babblers and annoyances. For we have lost our First Love, all because we esteemed the cost too high, the price too astronomical to pay. We have loved our lives too much to lose them; but we will lose them, every last one, if we will not lay our lives down at the altar of God and refuse to take them back up again for ourselves. "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (John 12:25).
"These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent" (Revelation 2:1-5).
The candlestick of the temple was to be made of one piece of beaten gold, all fashioned from one lump of that precious metal, filled with oil, and lit aflame to give light within the temple. This flame was to be a reflection and a picture of the Glory of the God of Israel, Who would inhabit this holy place, placing His Name there as His special abode amongst men. On each of those seven candlesticks within the holy place would be the likeness of the blossom of an almond branch. The almond tree was the first to blossom in the spring in the Near East. It was the first sign of life arising from death, the picture of a hastening of God's Word, as the LORD Himself would watch over His own word to perform it (see Jeremiah 1:11-12). This is the candlestick referred to in Revelation 1 & 2 as a metaphor for the church of Jesus Christ, the Firstbegotten from the dead. This is the candlestick that will be removed out of its place if the first works are not worked, if repentance is not fully wrought within our hearts, if we do not remember the height from which we have fallen and fall before the feet of our First Love in abandoned love to Him once again. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7). The converse of this promise to overcomers must then be a fearful removal from God's Presence into the horrific lot of darkness and eternal "death" reserved for all workers of iniquity--workers indeed, but workers to what end? (see Matthew 7:23).
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). To love Jesus Christ supremely is to put our love for anyone or anything else in the category of hatred in comparison to our love for Him. Love is the work that is necessary to prove our authenticity as disciples of Jesus Christ (see John 13:35). But it is not, nor will it ever be, love in word only, but love in very deed. This love is in itself the first works, as it is the contingent of the first and greatest commandment-- "Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all..." It is a love that consumes and swallows up every affection, every passion, and every desire, expressing itself in every activity of the saint of God. For this is the very love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, echoing back unto the One Who first loved us and consequently to everyone around us. When we see our own sordid nature in the light of God, it becomes almost easy to love the most wretched man or woman we can think of, because we realize that the vilest soul on the face of the earth cannot approach the proclivity for wickedness we have seen in our own hearts. Thus love unto God and neighbor is worked thoroughly within the church redounding unto the glory of God.
So many have heard the hard words of Jesus and turned back, never to follow again. Oh, they may follow in word, but their deeds and the limited space for God in their hearts betrays their profession of discipleship. But there are those who have counted the cost, there is a host of holy saints who have considered the price of discipleship, and counted such as less than excrement in comparison to the glorious riches in Jesus Christ the LORD. Have you ever scooped up cat droppings from the litter box? Have you ever scraped dog feces off the bottom of your shoe? Have you ever smelled the inside of a portable toilet that is not masked by perfumes or fragrances? This, my friend, is what the Apostle Paul said the grandeur of his life condescended to when compared to knowing his Lord (see Philippians 3:8). All the haughty authorities of earth, all the high-minded men, all the contrary arguments, all the worshippers in the synagogue of Satan will come and bow down to worship God before the feet of the holy, humble saints who have counted the cost and considered it well worth the trade to give everything they have and everything they are for the nail-pierced Lamb of Glory. "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee" (Revelation 3:9). What greater testimony could be proved before an unbelieving world than the fact that the Slaughtered Lamb is the selfsame Conquering King Who has loved me? From the trembling lips of these broken but overcoming saints is whispered the most confident confession of faith uttered by those who have cast away their nets, their wives, their very lives, and followed Him, "'Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God'...we have counted the cost and esteemed You alone worthy of our love and our lives" (John 6:68-69).
Mark 10:21
"The rich young ruler had the master passion to be perfect. When he saw Jesus Christ, he wanted to be like Him. Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself - a relationship with Himself in which there is no other relationship. Luke 14:26 has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification, but with unconditional identification with Jesus Christ. Very few of us know the absolute "go" of abandonment to Jesus.
"'Then Jesus beholding him loved him.' The look of Jesus will mean a heart broken for ever from allegiance to any other person or thing. Has Jesus ever looked at you? The look of Jesus transforms and transfixes. Where you are "soft" with God is where the Lord has looked at you. If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze.
"'One thing thou lackest...' The only "good thing" from Jesus Christ's point of view is union with Himself and nothing in between.
"'Sell whatsoever thou hast...' I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul (only one thing saves a man - absolute reliance upon Jesus Christ) - but in order to follow Jesus. 'Come, and follow Me.' And the road is the way He went."
My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, September 28
Why do we want something other than what God wants? When did we decide that there was something better, that we could come up with a plan, a method, a design that supercedes our Maker's? We spend countless hours on all sorts of activities, thinking that by offering our religious services God will somehow be pleased with our effort. What if He were to look upon these things, and in looking with His piercing insight, grant us the slightest glimpse of His perspective? Do you suppose we would finally begin seeing something that is far different than what we thought we saw?
"If any [man] come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost...So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple"(Luke 14:26-33, emphasis added).
Count the cost. When Jesus Christ was calling to Himself whosoever would come He made this awe-inspiring, nay, fear-inducing declaration. It was a command that would forever drive a nail in the coffin of every right we ever had to ourselves, our lives, our dreams, our ambitions, our hopes, our demands. The cost to those initial hearers of this tremendous word was EVERYTHING; and the cost to us is the same. This is what was required by the original twelve, the subsequent 120 in the Upper Room, the 3,000 following Pentecost, the man named Saul of Tarsus; and this is what is required of us, the church of Jesus Christ, today.
It has become so easy for us to pray, asking God to speak a word to us. We even say things like, "it doesn't matter how You speak, by whom You speak, or when You speak, just speak to me." But when the Almighty does speak we become bothered by what He says and bothered by the instrument He utilized in the delivery of His message to us, and this irritation is evidenced by our refusal to receive His Word. Oh, we might pay lip service to Him when He does speak, but we prove ourselves the obverse side of obedient disciples when we effectually hear but do not do. Yes, that is it, we are hearers of the word, but not doers of the word.
What if God chose to speak to you, pastor, brother, sister, Christian worker, through a thoroughly disadvantaged man, or maybe a youth of no seeming importance, a word that rocked your theology to its very core? Could you receive it? Or would you count the cost, and determine that the price is too high to pay to hear and obey that word which has issued forth from the very mouth of God Almighty through an instrument that shames your spiritual stature?
There are times when the authority from which we choose to operate is resolutely opposed to the moral qualities of life in the Holy Spirit. We somehow think that if we shout a little louder, stand a little taller, get our name out to a few more churches, thereby becoming recognized by the church at large, we finally have the platform from which to deliver the oracles of God. But such "oracles" were never received in the secret place, but too many times in prayerless meetings with fellow leaders, our church staff, our "executive" board, maybe even from our personal pet peaves that we think must irk God something aweful because of how such things so bother our flesh. We march out to the podium, delivering an impassioned message to the congregation, calling more attention to the sweat running down our furled brow than to the beating of God's heart for His church. We have no authority, because we refuse to abide in the Ultimate Authority. But to abide in this Authority requires a humility that will break every last bone in the spiritual legs we once stood on; it will crush the pomp protruding from our lofty look; it will throw our reputations right under the feet of the very men and women before whom we would so desire to be held in esteem.
"The highest authority conceivable for a man is that of a holy character. The holiest character is the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore His statements are never dogmas, they are declarations...There is no argument or discussion in what He says, it is not a question of the insight of a marvellous man, but a question of speaking with authority. 'He taught them as one having authority' (Matthew 7:29)..." (If Thou Wilt Be Perfect, Oswald Chambers).
Holiness is what is required. But this holiness is something altogether different from what we account as holiness. We look on the outward appearance. "How often do you attend church? Do you watch rated "R" movies? Do you pay your tithes? How are you serving the local body? Do you have a regular devotional time?" There is a quality of life in true holiness that shames every arrogant answer to the above queries. This holiness is not one of doing, it is one of being. "Be ye holy..." (1Peter 1:16). That is the command, not "Do ye holiness." For out of that true being shall flow all true doing, as God has said, "Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I [am] the LORD your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I [am] the LORD which sanctify you" (Leviticus 20:8). "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves" (James 1:22). This is a word spoken to those who have been begotten by the Spirit of God into an entirely new life, one of a perpetual offering unto God as His firstfruits (see James 1:18). Our part is to consecrate our holy selves unto God to whatever end He shall see fit. Then shall we bear His image; then shall we wait and watch until we hear the Voice of our Good Shepherd; then shall we become doers of the word that we hear. Then maybe, just maybe, God will entrust us with the incontrovertible utterances of His Holy Spirit, the delivery of His eternal Word.
But we have been no better than the devils who believe in proper doctrine, and tremble (see James 2:19). In fact, I suspect our state is much worse, in that we hold fast our orthodoxy, clinging to our dogma in a swift descent to hell, or at the very best to a salvation that barely escapes the flames of eternal judgement, because we do not know how to tremble any more at the Word of Yahweh. We have forgotten that our worship of God is to be offered with a holy fear, our rejoicing in God is to be coupled with trembling (Psalm 2:11). Our current condition is dangerously near that of the church of Ephesus which tested and rejected false apostles, refused false doctrines, and maintained a show of works that the world would readily acknowledge as worthy of praise. Although, I dare say we could scarcely discern the true apostles or prophets from the false any more, calling the false true and scorning the real spokesmen as babblers and annoyances. For we have lost our First Love, all because we esteemed the cost too high, the price too astronomical to pay. We have loved our lives too much to lose them; but we will lose them, every last one, if we will not lay our lives down at the altar of God and refuse to take them back up again for ourselves. "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal" (John 12:25).
"These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have [somewhat] against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent" (Revelation 2:1-5).
The candlestick of the temple was to be made of one piece of beaten gold, all fashioned from one lump of that precious metal, filled with oil, and lit aflame to give light within the temple. This flame was to be a reflection and a picture of the Glory of the God of Israel, Who would inhabit this holy place, placing His Name there as His special abode amongst men. On each of those seven candlesticks within the holy place would be the likeness of the blossom of an almond branch. The almond tree was the first to blossom in the spring in the Near East. It was the first sign of life arising from death, the picture of a hastening of God's Word, as the LORD Himself would watch over His own word to perform it (see Jeremiah 1:11-12). This is the candlestick referred to in Revelation 1 & 2 as a metaphor for the church of Jesus Christ, the Firstbegotten from the dead. This is the candlestick that will be removed out of its place if the first works are not worked, if repentance is not fully wrought within our hearts, if we do not remember the height from which we have fallen and fall before the feet of our First Love in abandoned love to Him once again. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7). The converse of this promise to overcomers must then be a fearful removal from God's Presence into the horrific lot of darkness and eternal "death" reserved for all workers of iniquity--workers indeed, but workers to what end? (see Matthew 7:23).
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). To love Jesus Christ supremely is to put our love for anyone or anything else in the category of hatred in comparison to our love for Him. Love is the work that is necessary to prove our authenticity as disciples of Jesus Christ (see John 13:35). But it is not, nor will it ever be, love in word only, but love in very deed. This love is in itself the first works, as it is the contingent of the first and greatest commandment-- "Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all..." It is a love that consumes and swallows up every affection, every passion, and every desire, expressing itself in every activity of the saint of God. For this is the very love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, echoing back unto the One Who first loved us and consequently to everyone around us. When we see our own sordid nature in the light of God, it becomes almost easy to love the most wretched man or woman we can think of, because we realize that the vilest soul on the face of the earth cannot approach the proclivity for wickedness we have seen in our own hearts. Thus love unto God and neighbor is worked thoroughly within the church redounding unto the glory of God.
So many have heard the hard words of Jesus and turned back, never to follow again. Oh, they may follow in word, but their deeds and the limited space for God in their hearts betrays their profession of discipleship. But there are those who have counted the cost, there is a host of holy saints who have considered the price of discipleship, and counted such as less than excrement in comparison to the glorious riches in Jesus Christ the LORD. Have you ever scooped up cat droppings from the litter box? Have you ever scraped dog feces off the bottom of your shoe? Have you ever smelled the inside of a portable toilet that is not masked by perfumes or fragrances? This, my friend, is what the Apostle Paul said the grandeur of his life condescended to when compared to knowing his Lord (see Philippians 3:8). All the haughty authorities of earth, all the high-minded men, all the contrary arguments, all the worshippers in the synagogue of Satan will come and bow down to worship God before the feet of the holy, humble saints who have counted the cost and considered it well worth the trade to give everything they have and everything they are for the nail-pierced Lamb of Glory. "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee" (Revelation 3:9). What greater testimony could be proved before an unbelieving world than the fact that the Slaughtered Lamb is the selfsame Conquering King Who has loved me? From the trembling lips of these broken but overcoming saints is whispered the most confident confession of faith uttered by those who have cast away their nets, their wives, their very lives, and followed Him, "'Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God'...we have counted the cost and esteemed You alone worthy of our love and our lives" (John 6:68-69).
posted by Bryan | 2:47 AM
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