Luke 14:28-33 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.
Law in
his terrible, cool, voice, said, .... "If you have not chosen the Kingdom
of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen
instead." Those are hard words to take. Will it really make no difference
whether it was women or patriotism, cocaine or art, whisky or a seat in the
Cabinet, money or science? Well, surely no difference that matters. We shall
have missed the end for which we are formed and rejected the only thing that
satisfies. Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route
he missed the only well?
It is a remarkable fact that on this subject Heaven and Hell speak with one voice. The tempter tells me, "Take care. Think how much this good resolve, the acceptance of this Grace, is going to cost." But Our Lord equally tells us to count the cost. Even in human affairs great importance is attached to the agreement of those whose testimony hardly ever agrees. Here, more. Between them it would seem to be pretty clear that paddling [near the shore] is of little consequence. What matters, what Heaven desires and Hell fears, is precisely that further step, out of our depth, out of our own control.
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