Seize the Moment – Day 1016
Count the Cost!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, December 28.
When confronting evil you must count the cost first – you must agree to take on yourself the consequences of your actions. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. counted the cost of leading the civil rights movement knowing that at a minimum he would spend time in jail. Ultimately, the cost of carrying his cross for the healing of our nation was his very life. The cost has not changed – freedom is never free!
Mordecai was overwhelmed with anguish upon hearing the murderous decree of the king – “he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, … and wailed loudly and bitterly” (Esther 4:1). At first, Queen Esther refused to act against this great evil, explaining how going to the king uninvited would be a breach of royal etiquette that could lead to her own death (4-11). Then Mordecai challenged Esther in verses 13-14:
Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?
Jesus Christ is inviting you to consider that same question as one of His followers, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:27). Has God elevated you to a position of royalty “for such a time as this?” What good has God laid upon your heart to do? Are you willing to “suffer for the sake of righteousness” (1 Peter 3:13-17; Matthew 5:10-12)?
Seize the moment and count the cost of God’s call upon your life. You never know how God might use your courage to take action. As the missionary Jim Elliot said before his martyrdom, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
God bless you!
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YOUTUBE:
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