¿Cuánto cuesta?

¿Cuánto cuesta?

I learned this question in Spanish very quickly..’How much does it cost?’ I need to know if I can afford it before I buy it!!! Jesus said something like this about our salvation didn’t He? Oh yes He did in Luke 14:26-33 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”

Over the past weekend we have been following the terrible events in Nairobi, where terrorist took over a shopping mall and in doing so killed numerous people, including children, injured many more and held hostages captive for hours. The stand-off continues this morning (Monday 23 Sept.). Yesterday another massacre took place in another country, this time Pakistan where Taliban suicide bombers blew themselves up outside and inside a Christian Church in Peshawar City killing 75 people and injuring many more. The morning service had just ended at All Saint’s Church and the victims were leaving to return home. Their crime according to the terrorists???
They are Christians in a Muslim Country!!!!

We didn’t hear much of this attack, it did not appear as the headlines on any news report that I saw or heard and today it will likely be pushed to middle pages of our newspapers..
In Tenerife and likely in the best part of the United Kingdom too we will hear more talk today of the great victory of City over United in the Manchester Derby yesterday?

While all this was going on yesterday, the majority of those who will read this blog went off to Church. You prayed, you sang, you heard the Word of God read and preached. You enjoyed fellowship with other Chirsitans. You went home, enjoyed your Sunday dinner, and relaxed in the afternoon and today you have woken up and praising God for another new day..

How blessed we are to live in countries where to be a Christian is ‘easy’ to live our lives of faith is to do so without fear!! Yet there are in many countries around the World, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran but to name a few where brothers and sisters are living and dying for their faith!!
Do we know anything of this at all???



To quote the words of Amos, “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion, and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria” 6:1  or as the hymn writer Isaac Watts puts it, “Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, while others fought to win the prize, and sailed through bloody seas?”
The hymn those words come from is of course, ‘Am I soldier of the Cross’ maybe not the most appropriate thing to say today, when our image of soldiers in Kenya dressed in battle gear and armed to the teeth, yet an analogy that is pictured throughout the New Testament and is apt today. A soldier, after all, is always ready for battle, always prepared, always listening and waiting for his Commanding Officers orders and prepared also to receive the consequences of following those orders, even to the giving of one's life.
We can almost distance ourselves from the events of continents far away and far removed from the community and culture we live in but someday soon we, even in our democratic nations are going to be called to stand up and pay a cost for our faith!  You may well have missed this last week for it certainly never got onto any news bulletin that I know of but did you know that in Scotland on Wednesday last (18 Sept) a Josh Williamson was arrested by Perth Police for preaching the Gospel. After being cautioned he was released but only after being warned NOT to preach again on the streets of Perth.


Wow..Acts Chapter 4 all over again!.in Scotland

and it is not going to be long before we all must face up the reality of do I obey man or God???
(http://www.joshwilliamson.org/home/86-arrested-for-preaching-the-gospel.html)

For too long we have been selling a cheap Gospel that never speaks of the cost..Even in preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ and His amazing saving grace we lavish our words on God’s FREE gift but seldom, except for Easter perhaps, do we focus our thoughts on the awesome cost, God’s precious Son’s life! BUT when it comes to discipling people we must never neglect to tell them whilst it cost them NOTHING to be saved, it may well cost them EVERYTHING to live for HIM!
Are you ready for that??
Chapter 14 of Luke’s Gospel ends with these words that should cause us to search our hearts deeply before answering that question,
“Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?  It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  

Our prayers go out to all the families mourning today in Kenya and in Pakistan for the injured and for the traumatised children and for the Lord to strengthen us for the days ahead.