If you are going to attempt to make a brand new recipe that you have never tried before, what is a good thing to do before you start? You need to make sure that you have all of the ingredients. If your recipe is a loaf of bread, you will need your flour, yeast, oil, water, etc, all ready to go. You will need your measuring cups, your baking pans, among other things, so that when you put everything together you will achieve the end result: a perfect loaf of bread.
You need to understand what it is that you need to do when you start something. I have been out fishing in a boat during the summer, pulling fish after fish out of the water, when suddenly I realize that I do not have enough bait to continue filling my limit of fish, and I had to go home early. I didn’t “count the cost.” I wasn’t prepared.
Well, you need to be prepared as a Christian, and recognize what it is that you are committing yourself to. You need to understand what it is that Jesus requires of you, and how it is that He wants you to live. When you begin your life as a Christian, you need to be able to finish what you have started.
Luke 14:26-33 “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, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”
To truly be a Christian, we need to give ourselves wholly to the service of Christ. All 110% of how we live needs to be surrounded by the word of God, and we need to put Him above everything and everyone else in our life.
Jesus told the parable of the sower and this parable also illustrates what Jesus had taught in like 14. The seeds which feel into the stony places are those people who hear the word of God, but they do not endure. Because of tribulation and persecution they fall away, and they become unfruitful, while those who receive the word into good ground and produce thirty, sixty, one hundred fold are those who understood the choice that they had made, they endured the persecution, and they made it to the end.
Matthew 13:18-23 “Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower.
When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended.
He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.
But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
So have you counted the cost? Have you put the Lord above the other things in your life? Jesus wants your all. He wants your best. Have you done everything that you can to give it to Him?
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 