The Cost

Jesus told a parable about building a tower and then continued his exposition with an example based on war.

The Cost of Being a Disciple
Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:31-33

Last weekend we celebrated the Fourth of July and in doing so honored the brave men who have fought and died to establish and preserve our freedom. Last week my father attended a gathering of ex POW’s from WWII and the meeting was covered by my friend from high school Mary McCarty. She is a columnist at the Dayton Daily News my hometown newspaper. Mary wrote briefly about my father’s war experience. I have heard his story before. I have read his memoirs where he told more than he ever said, but it was through Mary’s eyes I saw something I had never seen before. I saw a strong young man emaciated to the weight of an adolescence girl who I knew as one who witnessed the holocaust. Sunday morning as I read Mary’s piece I saw him as one who experienced the holocaust and survived. I never put flesh on the reality he escaped when the Allied troop came and liberated him from death.

The cost of war…

A friend of mine recently posted a video by David Wilkerson on the cost of revival; anguish. Both these stories have resonated through my heart and mind over the Fourth stirring my emotions. When we seek revival we surely opt for combat. We need to count the cost before we commit. Revival will cost us. The video talked about the anguish over the lost that motivates us to go, tell and make disciples. The anguish that I perceive is the cost that obedience demands. There is no revival without anguish over the lost or complete obedience to the king. We die to the personal preferences that keep us complacent and keep us from the commitment needed for revival.

My son recently returned from a trip to Asia. I found a card among his belongings, a thank you note from the church there. As I picked it up and read the names a current went through my body as I thought of them, then the persecuted church and then the millions and millions of those who have never heard and I wept.