Counting the Cost

 

 

Just so you know, I was brought up in a typical, fundamental, Baptist church.  I was taught from an early age that Jesus Christ was my Lord and Savior, that He died on a cross and rose again on the third day to save me from my sins.  I was taught that all I had to do was ask His forgiveness of my sins and I would be saved and have eternal life in Heaven.  And, like any good Baptist, at the tender age of twelve, I walked down the aisle at Boyd’s Union Chapel, I aske Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my heart.  The pastor told me I was saved and welcomed me to the family of God.

            I was never discipled.  I was never taught what true repentance meant. I was never questioned on how much I understood about Jesus Christ and the salvation that He offers.  I was never taught how to walk with Him and talk with Him. I didn’t even know what sin was.  I was baptized a few weeks later and I spent the next thirty years of my life believing that I was on my way to Heaven, despite there no being a single shred of evidence that I even knew Christ.  All I knew was that I had asked Jesus into my heart and a pastor had told me I was saved, and everyone made a big deal out of it.  Problem was, I wasn’t saved.  I wasn’t on my way to heaven and if I had died during those thirty years, I would be in Hell today.

            This is what is taught in most Christian churches in America today and it’s been taught for generations.  What we have done in the American church is, we have turned salvation into a   little business of sorts.  It’s nothing more than a game of numbers.  We equate a successful worship service with how many decisions were made or how many re dedications there were.  There is no talk of repentance, no talk of sin and its consequences, and no disciplining.  What ever happened to disciplining new converts?  Get them to the alter, get a decision, and move them into some ministry within the church. A person can be saved, sanctified, and standing in a pulpit within a week.  I’m exaggerating a bit, I know.  A new convert might be teaching a Sunday School class in a week, but it might take at least a month to make preacher.

            We can jest and make lighthearted jokes about modern American Christianity, but folks, this is serious business.  Souls are at stake.    We are in a war and we are losing.  We are losing because we have left the truth of scripture behind and we are preaching what is known today as “easy believes,” or a “seeker sensitive gospel.”  It has become about getting decisions for Christ, and while that isn’t a bad thing in itself, we have severely watered down the gospel to make it much more palatable to all people.  It’s almost like we are trying to pad the Book of Life so we don’t show up at the pearly gates empty handed.  I hate to burst any bubbles here but, folks, not everyone is going to Heaven.  Sad, but true.

Jesus clearly said in Mathew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’  And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”

  It’s not about numbers or decisions, it’s about following Christ and witnessing to lost people.  It’s about teaching and preaching the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  We plant seeds, someone else may water them, and someone else may reap the harvest of that soul; sometimes we may do all three, but the goal is to obey Christ…period, regardless of the outcome.

            So, Mr. or Mrs., or Ms. Christian…are you following the real Jesus Christ, the one that said “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me, and if you are not willing to do this then you are not worthy of me.”  Are you following this Jesus Christ or an image of Him that you made up in your mind?

I’m not going to blow smoke here, if you are going to follow the real Jesus Christ, it’s going to cost you, maybe a little, maybe a lot, but it will cost you something.  Are you prepared to pay the cost? You need to count the cost and know without a doubt that you are willing to pay it.  It’s not a question of whether you can afford to pay it or not, you can’t afford not to.  Jesus said that anyone that puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the kingdom of God.

Think on these things for a while.  They really are much more important than you may think.  You can spend your life making loads of money, buying all kinds of stuff, and taking expensive, extended vacations, and giving God what is left over, if that’s what you really want, but let me ask you this…what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and looses his own soul?