Luke 14:25-35 How Expensive is the Tower?
Format for Your Devotions
Instructions: Do not read my example devotion until you have completed your own devotional time in the scriptures. Reading my thoughts first may limit your own understanding. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you alone before looking to see what anyone else has to say, whether it is me, a Bible commentary, or a friend. Let God speak to you before you let another person speak to you. I have provided a format, but modify it to fit your needs. For example, I usually combine my application and prayer together talking to God about the application to my own life. You can go through this devotion process mentally, speaking out loud, or in writing as you wish. Don’t worry if you are not following this process exactly. Sometimes, I add extra information and sometimes I emphasize one part more than others. However, you should always think about what you learn about God from this passage.
Step 1: Pray–Ask for the Holy Spirit’s guidance first of all and that God may reveal the lessons that He wants you to have that day. Request that God protect you from Satan’s distractions (and the devil will try to distract you whether it is pinching the baby or putting you to sleep). Ask to see God more clearly as you read and think about the passage.
Step 2: Read the passage–Read to get an overview of the information first. Then start looking at specific parts after the first reading. You may read a larger or smaller section than I have here because you do not have to follow my organization at all.
Step 3: Understand the passage–You can summarize, ask and answer your own questions about the passage, visualize the story, analyze the characters, and relate this passage to other scriptures and personal experiences.
Step 4: What does this reveal about God?–What do you learn about the Father, Son, and/or Holy Spirit from this passage?
Step 5: Apply this to your own life.
Step 6: Prayer
My Example Devotion: September 27, 2018 Luke 14:25-35
Note: In the devotion examples, I leave my questions and thought processes in the text because I am trying to demonstrate that a devotional time is a dialogue with God about what you are reading from His word. As such, any questions or ideas that you have should be explored by talking it out with God. These example devotions are not my attempts to teach you what the meaning of a particular scripture is. They are an attempt to teach you the process of devotions, which is a combination of prayer and Bible study where you explore ideas with God as you read His word.
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “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. “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.”
(Understanding the Text / Revelation of God) Jesus is warning the people who wanted to become His disciples that they should know the cost ahead of time and make a total commitment to Him. He does
not want us to hate people. In other places, Jesus said to love people, so the meaning here is that Jesus must take top priority among His followers above even their parents and children. Jesus must take priority even over our own lives. Edersheim puts it this way, “So, and much more, must the intending disciple make complete inward surrender of all, deliberately counting the cost, and, in view of the coming trial, ask himself whether he had, indeed, sufficient inward strength – the force of love to Christ – to conquer. And thus discipleship, then, and, in measure, to all time, involves the necessity of complete inward surrender of everything for the love of Christ, so that if, and when, the time of outward trial comes, we may be prepared to conquer in the fight. He fights well, who has first fought and conquered within.”
Jesus said that He did not want people who start to be disciples and then give it up. They make people laugh in scorn at being a disciple. He wanted us to reflect on the cost and be prepared to fight the battles that result from following Him. He even said that the cost might be as high as being crucified, tortured to death over an extended period of time. In those days this was a literal result of becoming a follower of Christ. The message is still good nowadays. Following Jesus means we can’t simply add Him on as an extra feature to our lives. We must change our whole focus to Him. He must become the center of our lives with everyone and everything else, including dying or living, becoming the extra features to a life centered on Jesus.
Jesus said that a Christian who is only half committed is useless to Him. That Christian will bring shame and dishonor upon God’s reputation. Jesus found an example in salt, which is very useful not only in taste, but also in food preservation; however, if the salt is ruined it cannot be used like other garbage to fertilize and grow something new. Instead, it ruins the field if it is cast on it as garbage. A Christian who does not commit to Jesus can end up ruining the whole area around him/her so that the gospel cannot penetrate into the hearts of those who have been influenced by the half-hearted Christian.
Jesus said ” He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Jesus said this when saying that John the Baptist was Elijah, when telling the parable of the sower and the wheat and tares, and here. This is similar to Revelation and the 7 churches. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’” (Revelation 2:7). I get the feeling that this might have been a common saying of Jesus. Why? Because He knew that most of the people would not listen even though they claimed to? Or maybe it was Jesus’ way of saying to look for the deeper message. Look below the surface. Think about it and see how it applies. Don’t just take what I am saying at face value.
(Application / Prayer) My application for myself is that the only way that I can be useful to Jesus is to give Him my total commitment. I have to decide daily that I am His and that all else is a distraction. I have to do this daily because it is so easy to get distracted and let the world come between me and Jesus. He must be my priority and necessity. Remind me when I forget and let the world become too important. Show me how to have a balance between living according to the world’s rules and living with You.