Counting the Cost

Luke 14:26-33  If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.  And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.  For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,  Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.  Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?  Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.  So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

Mission Statement of the Seventh Day Adventist Church

The mission of the Seventh Day Adventist Church is to make disciples of all people, communicating the everlasting gospel in the context of the three angels messages of  Revelation 14:6-12, leading them to accept Jesus as personal Saviour and unite with His remnant church, discipling them to serve Him as Lord and preparing them for His soon return.

So what’s so Good about the Good News?

Good news is always welcome in a world that is awash with the depressing , the sad, the shocking, the catastrophic. Many news channels leave special items that can be classified as ‘good news’ for the final segment of the broadcast, just after the weather. Having been bombarded with the gloomy reports earlier, it is always something of a relief to see something lighter, refreshing, or amusing. Such a scenario is a telling indictment on the state of the world. The world we live in today is not a happy place, and the media, whether it be television, radio, or the press, is a constant testimony and reminder that we are surrounded on every side by unrelenting horror stories bringing disease, death, and destruction to both the innocent and not so innocent alike. It is a fact that we have seen so much bad news that we have become so inured by it that it takes major disasters to genuinely move most people to any semblance of emotional empathy with the suffering and dying.  ‘Lesser’ forms of bad news are now so common that we have become quite blasé; the story of the Good Samaritan may have made the final segment, but the violent assault on the wayfarer would have barely rated a mention.

Which brings me to a particularly notable story that deserves to have its own segment on every news broadcast every day.

What is new about the New Covenant?

Covenants and testaments are based on promises and agreements between two or more parties.
Our Creator God is a God of infinite, unfailing, unwavering, uncompromising love. It always has been and always will be that He would have His erring sinful proud and unbelieving creatures to know this love, and therefore, to know Him.It has always been His heartfelt yearning that God and man should be on the most if intimate of terms and that both may know the joy and peace that would come from a loving relationship with one another. The entire Government of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, and the laws by which it is governed, is based on this love. And everything God purposes to do, promises, accomplishes, says and does, has as its motivating principle God’s perfect love. (Deut. 7:7,8; Isa. 63:7-9; 1 John 4:7-21; 1 John 5:1-4)

That is why, when Adam sinned, God still sought him out. (Gen. 3:9) Love was the motivating factor behind God’s promise (Genesis 3:15; Nahum 1:9) that the damage to the relationship caused by sin would ultimately be undone (Isa 59:2); that the power of Satan over our lives would be reversed (John 8:34; Romans 6:16,20; 2 Peter 2:19) and the power of death would be overcome (Ezek. 18:4,20; Romans 5:12; Romans 6:23). How was God to accomplish all this while at the same time honouring justice, love and mercy? Through Jesus Christ.

Smokey Bear

Smokey the Bear.

In 1941 the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour in Hawaii. In the spring of the following year a Japanese submarine surfaced off the coast of California and lobbed a number of shells into an oil field near Santa Barbara and immediately adjacent to the Los Padres national forest. Very shortly thereafter, on the back of public concern for the integrity of their forests and national fervour in the wake of that attack upon their homeland, there began a public service advertising campaign promoting fire safety in wilderness areas. Walt Disney studios loaned the new cartoon character “Bambi” and the campaign took off. This loan arrangement however was for only one year, so the promoters had to find a new mascot. They settled on a black bear, and named him “Smokey”. This was in 1944, and the series still runs today.

Taking up our Cross

Matthew 16:24  Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

What does Jesus mean by this, that we are to take up our own crosses, and follow Him? What did it mean for Jesus to take up His cross ? What was the motivating power behind Jesus life and death?

Love. What is the essential and intrinsic nature and characteristic of love? The world today is immensely confused over the meaning of love. That half the marriages celebrated today (including within the church) end up in divorce bears testimony to this confusion. The fact that an institution supposedly based on love has a 50% chance of ending up in acrimony, bitterness and estrangement shows clearly that the ‘love’ for a great many of those marrying couples was temporary, conditional, and limited in it’s enduring quality and considering the glittering career today of marriage counselors I would suggest the quality of marriage leaves much to be desired also.

God, a Consuming Fire.

About 8 years ago in the US were some terrible forest fires, such as has never before been experienced, nor since. Here in NZ we watched for months on the news constant reports of the ever advancing fires that were devastating the forests in, if I remember correctly, over ten states, from Florida to Oregon, and most in between. Firefighters from Australia Canada and here went to assist in the disaster. When they were finally under control, it was nature and not man that brought the fires to an end.
I well remember a reporter asking a forest service officer the cause of such a devastating fire. “Why so bad?”, she asked. The reply was shocking, but immediately understandable. “Because we were too good at putting out previous fires.”
Do you see the significance of that reply? You see, too much rubbish and dry rotted and waste timber had built up on the forest floor and thus there was a huge amount of fuel for the fire to feed off. Couple that with a particularly dry summer and the result was a disaster. Allowing controlled fires to previously burn off that rubbish would have been far less dangerous, lest costly, and more manageable.

Scripture alludes to the child of God as a tree. (See Psalm 1)
I see many trees as a forest, thus the church as a forest. There is rubbish (sin) within each believer and within the church that must be allowed to be burnt off. The Holy Spirit is the agent of fire. We are to be tried as gold in the fire that the impurities may be cleansed. Jesus says “Re 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.

We must not act as firefighters. We must allow the fire of the Holy Spirit to do His work. If we resist the Holy Spirit, if we refuse to allow Him to cleanse us or we deny that there is cleansing to be done, then the rubbish will build up to such an extent that there will be only one fire capable of the cleansing. Sadly, if we are not separated from the sin in our lives now, we will be destroyed along with it later.

Fire is a healthy instrument for the forest and the church.. Freeing the forest/church from the rubbish on the floor allows new trees/Christians to germinate and grow without hindrance.
Dead wood/sin within each tree/Christian burnt off allows freedom to grow and bear fruit.
Stronger trees/Christians make for stronger forests/churches.
There are many other parallels and similarities – the point being that we must consider what we are now undergoing and accept it for what it is. A cleansing sanctifying work being accomplished by a holy sovereign gracious God who is making us fit for His kingdom.

Jas 1:2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;
3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.
4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

1Pe 1:7 That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: