My Utmost for His Highest - May 7th - Building for Eternity

For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? - Luke 14:28

    Our Lord refers not to a cost we have to count, but to a cost which He has counted. The cost was those thirty years at Nazareth, those three years of popularity, scandal and hatred, the deep unfathomable agony in Gethsemane, and the onslaught at Calvary--the pivot upon which the whole of Time and Eternity turns. Jesus Christ has counted the cost. Men are not going to laugh at Him at last and say--"This man began to build, and was not able to finish. (Luke 14:30)"

    The conditions of discipleship laid down by Our Lord in vv. 26, 27, and 33 mean that the men and women He is going to use in His mighty building enterprises are those in whom He has done everything. "If any man come to Me, and hate not . . . , he cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:26)" Our Lord implies that the only men and women He will use in His building enterprises are those who love Him personally, passionately and devotedly beyond any of the closest ties on earth. The conditions are stern, but they are glorious.

    All that we build is going to be inspected by God. Is God going to detect in His searching fire that we have built on the foundation of Jesus some enterprise of our own (see I Corinthians 3:10-15)? These are the days of tremendous enterprises, days when we are trying to work for God, and therein is the snare. Profoundly speaking, we can never work for God. Jesus takes us over for His enterprises, His building schemes entirely, and no soul has any right to claim where he shall be put.

- From Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest" - Classic Edition

Highlights and Underlines are courtesy of Mom from her print edition.

My thoughts

We don't work for God, but rather Jesus takes us over for His work. But I do love Him with all of me and am willing to give up all for Him. I count the cost. The cost isn't mine, but it is all that He has done for me. That's the cost. My cost is simply seeing this and knowing this and therefore trusting in Him. The effort in me is simply surrender.