All Talk No Tower

Have you ever driven down a road and, in that drive, felt that sense of an unfinished building? It's not something ruined, like an old house, but a sadness when there is something different about a building that was never built. An unfinished building is a monument to something that did come to fulfillment. There are other symbols, such as unfinished diets, incomplete education, and an unfinished ministry. These are graveyards of unfulfilment. We live in a culture of experts at starting something but never completing it.

You cannot grow a church if you cannot disciple. The crowd can follow without ever counting. The crowd is where most people live and die. On the road, they all look alike. Attendance may look like a connection to the ministry. Jesus was never flattered by the crowd. Not all movement represents ministry. It’s possible to be in the number but never be in the book. Every unfinished project requires you to ask two questions. Can you count up the cost, or did you refuse to count up the cost?

When you fail to count the cost is because you do not want to surrender to the cost. It is not that you cannot pray, but you refuse to pray. It is not that you cannot forgive, but that you decided not to forgive. Count what following Jesus will cost you.

The war teaches us that we have to seek peace to follow the king. When we count up the cost to holiness, we will discover that we do not have enough resources to do it on our own merit. If you do not forsake it all, God is not Lord of your life. Remember, you are a child of Jesus Christ.