SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 20
OBSERVATION/APPLICATION:
Plans succeed through good counsel; don’t go to war without wise advice. [Proverbs 20:18]
And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. But don’t begin until you count the cost… Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counsellors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own. [Luke 14:27-28,31-33]
Solomon is urging people to THINK, apparently because people have a shocking tendency to not think things through carefully… i.e. folly!
What Jesus calls “counting the cost” is the same thing as discernment, using the ears and eyes that God gave us [Proverbs 20:12] to carefully think things through.
Such insight and wisdom is available to all, if they look for it – but we need to draw it out.
Though good advice lies deep within the heart, a person with understanding will draw it out. [Proverbs 20:5]

Some people say that following Jesus is too hard, or too demanding.
But think it through, what is the cost of not following Jesus, of not responding to God, of going our own way rather than God’s way?
If only people would think things through carefully before they go deeper into debt, or engage in inappropriate sexual behaviour, or lie to their spouse, or share that gossip, or…
We run headlong and heedless into our days, into our plans, without caution or discernment.
And at the end of the day we end up where we do because of the choices we made at the beginning of the day.

Solomon’s words are the result of great reflection and discernment; these are the things he learned by personal experience (i.e. the hard way) and by observation (the experience of others).
Each one of these sayings deserves careful consideration, and application to our own lives.
But there is one other lesson in this passage that also reminds us why we need to especially consider Jesus’ warning about choosing to follow Him or not.
Who can say, “I have cleansed my heart; I am pure and free from sin”? [Proverbs 20:9]

If Solomon – a man of wisdom and careful discernment, a man who sought out the counsel of others before he acted, a man who understood that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom – if even Solomon blows it in the end (he succumbs to the three big temptations: money, sex and power), then what makes us think we can handle what life throws at us?
The cost of not following Jesus is more than just what we miss out on from Jesus, its also what we get by going our own way.
The wage of sin is misery and death – is that a price worth paying?

PRAYER:

Lord, help me to pay attention, to seek discernment, to get good advice. Help me to learn from my own life and others that You are my only hope!