Hi Pastor Bob here! Welcome back, listeners to the Men of Valor Podcast. The verse today comes from the book of Proverbs chapter 4 verse 7. It states, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” As I go through life I have observed the wisdom and the foolishness of measuring the cost and pricing things. I've often been with our grandchildren when they really wanted something like an ice cream cone or a new toy. I sometimes ask them ‘Should I buy this if it costs $1000?’ and they always excitedly say, ‘Yes Pop-Pop! Yes! I would really like that! I really want it!’. Why would they think it's worth $1000? Obviously, they have no sense of the value or cost of the thing that they're asking for.

"What price did Jesus Christ pay for us?"

Over the years, after working with several people regarding finances, I’ve discovered people usually also have no sense of cost or value of money until they have to work for it. Until they start to equate how many hours they need to work to buy an object - they are similar to our grandchildren! However once that wisdom comes in, and it comes in at various stages of life, often the object they desired changes from, ‘I really need it’ to ‘I don't really need it that bad’ and sometimes they decide not to buy it once they understand the hours that they have to sacrifice for the object they desire -- the reality of cost or value starts to kick in.

"They spent everything Jesus had - his life - to pay the price for our sins."

Jesus says in Luke 14:28, who builds a tower without estimating the cost? The question we all have to ask ourselves is this - Is the cost to follow Jesus Christ worth more to me than all the things the world has to offer? First Corinthians 6:20 states “you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” And Romans 12:1 states, lay your bodies down as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. What price did Jesus Christ pay for us? What value did He and His Father put on us? They valued our relationship so highly that they spent everything Jesus had - his life - to pay the price for our sins.

"The cost of giving Him our lives doesn't come close to the reward our Heavenly Father gives us for doing that."

Often as I waited in line for something at the stores I remember Pastor Janet asking this question: What would you be willing to pay to get out of the line going to hell and get into the line going to heaven? Wow! It's so easy to quickly give an answer to that question - I'm just like our grandchildren when they respond - I say to myself, ‘I want it! I would pay anything for that!’ But as we review our lives now that we have more of an understanding of the cost required, have we been willing to pay it? Well, praise the Lord if we have and if we haven’t, we can still praise Him, for as the apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:13 “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.” Once we repent and turn our ways of life to His ways and make Him Lord of our lives, we know the cost of giving Him our lives doesn't come close to the reward our Heavenly Father gives us for doing that.

Heavenly Father, thank you for sending your one and only son Jesus Christ to pay the cost of our sins. Jesus Christ, thank you for being obedient to your Father and dying for us and thank you Holy Spirit for entering us and giving us the power to break darkness in our lives and other lives, to reject sin and to walk with you daily. What an amazing God we serve. God bless you all.