Counting the Cost

Counting the Cost

“And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  

(Luke 14:27)

The Lord, in the anchor scripture, gave an analogy of a man intending to build a house without counting the cost, the result would be ridicule upon such man; or who travels an hundred mile with a litre of diesel in his vehicle? Similarly, we cannot over-emphasize the importance of counting the cost of our pilgrimage, lest haply the devil make a jest of our faith.

Counting the cost would require every believer to acknowledge the presence of the cross on our pilgrimage- the cross we must be ready to bear. Every saint who has procured to themselves the golden crown through the lamb’s blood has borne their cross as a pilgrim. The urgency of this demand upon Christians was so great that Isaac Watts in one of his hymns penned a verse as “Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody sea”.

Have you come to the point where you decide that the bridge that connects you with the world be broken? Such that, regardless of what comes your path, regardless of the cross you may be asked to bear, you can speak like Apostle Paul who said ‘’what shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’’ This is a natural response of a man who has counted the cost, who has resolved from the outset of his pilgrimage that, ‘Look, I know it’s not going to be a bed of roses, nor shall it be beautiful all through, when it gets tough, I’m setting my face like a flint, I won’t go back from following the Lord’. These kinds of men pass through the crucibles of trials victoriously, but those who don’t count the cost would shudder when trials come and revert!

Have you counted the cost of the journey; have you broken the bridge that connects you to the world?

Author: Bro O. W. Ahmed