Wisdom's Corner
Count the Cost

Have you ever gone to the store to buy some candy or a present for someone? You look for a long time at all the things on the counter and really think hard about what you want to buy. Then after you decide what you want you take it to the person working in the store. But when that person tells you how much your item is, you sadly realize you don't have enough money to buy it. Oh, how sad you are. If you had only known how much it was going to be, you could have brought enough to buy it. Or you could have done jobs around the house to make enough money to buy it.

Even grown-ups make that mistake sometimes. Have you ever seen a house that was only half built? The house stays that way for a long time without anyone ever working on it. After awhile the house begins to fall apart and in the end completely falls apart. This probably happened because the person building it did not plan very well about how much the house would cost to build. The house was only half built when the builder ran out of money.

God said our spiritual life could be like that. Some people say they want to be Christians. They say they want to follow Jesus. They say they want to go to heaven. But they do not study the Bible. They do not fully understand what they must do to obey God. They are very excited in the beginning. But after awhile they do not have enough Bible knowledge to do what they are supposed to do. They do not live their life the way God wants them to live.

Read Luke 14:27-30. "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."

To truly follow Jesus, you must be willing to follow all of his teaching. And the only way you can follow his teaching is if you study the Bible. You must also be willing to give all that you have to Jesus. That does not mean that you give everything away. It means that you use all of your blessings to glorify God. You are not selfish with what you have.

If you are not willing to do these things, you will not be able to finish building your spiritual life into the building that God wants. You will fall away from God. And people that don't believe in God will laugh at you. The same way they would laugh at someone who could not finish building a house because they did not plan ahead of time.

If any of this is hard to understand, ask an adult to help you. And remember, keep studying your Bible. Only that way will you learn how to live the way God wants you to live.

Mark McWhorter

Copyright 1998

Published by The Old Paths Bible School
(http://www.oldpaths.org)