Several years ago my wife and I took on the challenge of building our house. We acted as our own general contractor, did much of the work ourselves, and after moving in, had the satisfaction of knowing how well-built the house was and that the effort, cost, and commitment we had put into it was well worth it. We knew going into the project that it would take at least a year, would require us to still perform our duties as lead pastors, and would mean that this had to be our priority in order for it to be completed.

In Luke 14 Jesus talks about the cost of being his disciple. Basically he implores us to first count the cost before taking on this life of disciplined focus. He doesn’t want us to be casual about our decision to follow him, nor does he want us to not consider what it will take. He tells us on the front end that we must love him above all else, that we must be willing to make the ultimate sacrifices, and that we must be diligent and disciplined at all times, or we cannot be his disciple.

Today focus on counting the cost to follow Jesus and make the commitments necessary to be his disciple.