Counting The Cost***

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  It is His role and desire to lead me into all Truth. 

Many are the days over the course of my life when seeing the persecution of the righteous leaves me feeling defeated and whiny. 

None of us asked to be born in these days of end times yet in the Sovereignty of the Almighty here we are:  Feet planted on fallen earth “at” such a times as this.  But then, we get to choose to believe and act as if it is also “for” such a time as this, as it was for Queen Esther in the book that bears her name.  That is called purpose and I am compelled to look for mine

We are starting to see the overt persecution of Christians again after a long period of peace for the Church.   Yet whether we realize it or not the subtle persecution of our Christianity goes on in our personal lives day after day through the adverse circumstances we face from an unseen enemy that some may choose to call “fate”. 

The Holy One speaks what very few of us hear before we make the decision to follow Christ, “Remember what it is to count the cost!”

Death to our “self-life” is the cost all who follow Christ will sooner or later be required to pay.  Death and the cross of crucifixion comes to us in many different ways as we journey with Jesus.  For the martyrs who we see being tortured and beheaded, the death is a final and physical one.  

For others it may be staying in a love-less marriage, or thank-less job.  Death may come as a talented mom who decides to stay at home for her children instead of following after a promising career.  For others it may be enduring the pain of living and seeing many children starving in a foreign land while being able to help only a handful to survive.

Emotional oppression and physical infirmities can also be persecution by an unseen enemy and does in part explain why bad things can and do happen to good people.  The list of ways to die to ourselves goes on whether by choice or happenstance and each way is unique to the calling that Jesus has on our lives.

Jesus was the one who gave warning to those who would choose to follow Him. 

Luke 14:25 Jesus talked about “hating” family and even their own life, “And whosoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.  For which of you intending to build a tower does not sit down first and count the cost whether he has enough to finish it…”   

Earlier in Luke Jesus told them in Luke 12:51-53, “Do you suppose that I came to bring peace on earth?  I tell you not at all.  For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two and two against three.  Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. 

These divisions are heartbreaking and forms of death for relational beings that we are.  Jesus was not telling us to hate in the common sense of the word hate, but rather requiring his followers to prioritize their love for Him above all others.   Following Jesus will bring persecution from those we love and out of relationships we cherish.  We must be prepared to endure what that means. 

The Church has become soft and in part I believe it is due to the soft pedaling of the Gospel.  We treat salvation like a ticket to Disneyland rather than prepare the “saved” for the hardship of what will begin a life of persecution and death to our life of comfort and ease.  While Eternity is our outrageous and delightful destination, the Christian’s journey on fallen earth is anything but easy. 

It seems to me that we, the church, are a community of shell-shocked believers who were either never told about the persecution to come or were adolescent in thinking that persecution would not be part of our life experience. 

Jesus never minced words and was always brutally honest in everything He spoke of.  When He told those who would follow Him that persecution would come, it did.    But Jesus also promised that He would never leave nor forsake those who were and would become His followers.

On the flip side of counting the cost of following Jesus, I see how following a self-serving lifestyle or worst yet a seducing evil spirit also bears a cost. The consequences of sin without a Savior to mediate brings eternal as well as temporal pain.  Evil makes no promises past the immediate but short-lived pleasure and it bears noting that Satan hates and persecutes all humanity even those doing his will.  

Understanding the truth and reality of persecution underscores for me the truth and reality of the promises for those of us who believe.  If persecution is truth, then so are the promises Jesus made to His followers.

Promises follow and speak of joy and relief to come, “Beloved do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you, but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s suffering.  That when His glory is revealed you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”  I Peter 4:12   

The glory of the Lord can be revealed at any moment since that is what the Holy Spirit brings out of our lives as we endure and persevere through the hard times.  So our joy is not just for the sweet by and by but also the hard here and now, and can be found in the Divine intervention we will experience here on earth.   

James 1:2 also speaks of the trials of persecution, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials that the testing of your faith produce patience.  But let patience have it perfect work; that you may be perfect and complete lacking nothing.”      

Today the Holy One has dialed up and made an important point in understanding the fiery trials we face and can rightfully call persecution.  Persecution was warned as the cost of following Jesus and all should be encouraged to count the cost.  But once we are in it, we must look for and appreciate the Divine purpose for it.  And that is the perfecting of our faith.

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?