Monday 10 Sep 2018

September 10: Luke 14:28-35

Key Verse: Luke 14:28
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?

Devotion:
There are times when forward planning is essential, and there are times when forward planning cannot be done because a direction is not known, or a goal is not defined. Sometimes we just cannot rely on what we know because we do not know enough to get the job done; you are going to face many times like that in your walk with God. Being sensible in your walk with God is going to make you face new grounds, new ideas and new ways of working – because of that, we have to rely on God for those new instructions all the time.

If we get stuck in our old ways of living, especially after we get to know God, then we may well be ignoring those new instructions and living our old lives instead of living a new life with God. Using the excuse of “that’s the way we have always done it” does not work with God; He wants you to be a disciple on a mission, which means getting out there into new territory, new ground and new ways to spread the gospel message instead of hiding it in your familiar surroundings.

But there are certain things which we do need to plan in our lives, after all, we do live in a world which is very materialistic and which depends on money and goods to continue working. We need to plan for living in this world – but using those plans and ideas to control what you are doing for God does not match up with what He is asking you to do. The disciples were told to go out without caring about how much money they had and not to go out to look for “hotels” or ”motels” in which to stay – God wanted them to connect to the communities they were entering and get the people to come forward to offer places to stay.

Were the disciples prepared? Yes they were! They were prepared by learning as much of the gospel as they needed to go out and tell people about it. See the difference between the worldly preparedness and the heavenly preparedness? God wants us to be prepared for our heavenly duty; He needs us to be full of flavour, salty, prepared in that manner. We need to make an impression so God’s scripture can get into the places where mankind is removing it or leaving it out.

Points to Ponder:
Are you prepared to do Gods will?

Are you prepared to leave worldly ways behind?