Day 14 of 28
Counting the Cost
Total Surrender
Scripture Readings
Today's Reading
Read 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?... So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple."
Then read Romans 12:1: "I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
Reflection
Lewis closes this section of his argument with one of his most beloved and powerful images: the house being rebuilt by God.
You invite God in, expecting Him to fix the obvious problems — the leaking roof of bad habits, the faulty wiring of a short temper. These repairs are welcome. They make sense. But then God starts knocking out walls you thought were load-bearing. He tears up floors you considered finished. The renovation becomes far more extensive — and far more painful — than you ever anticipated.
"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense."
The point is not that God is cruel. The point is that His plans for you are far grander than your plans for yourself.
"What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of... You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."
Jesus warns his followers to count the cost before following Him. Half-finished towers are worse than no tower at all. But the cost, enormous as it is, buys something immeasurably greater: not a patched-up version of your old self, but a completely new creation — a dwelling fit for God Himself.
Paul describes the cost in Romans 12:1 as presenting your entire body as a "living sacrifice." The phrase is deliberately paradoxical. A sacrifice is dead; this one is living. You are to die to self while remaining fully alive — more alive, in fact, than you have ever been.
Going Deeper
This concludes Week 2. Lewis has moved from the moral argument for God's existence to the full Christian story: free will, the fall, the Incarnation, the atonement, the Trinity, and the call to total surrender.
The house metaphor is worth sitting with today. Where is God doing work in your life that feels destructive but might be constructive? What "rooms" are you reluctant to let Him enter? The discomfort may be a sign not that something is wrong, but that something far greater than a cottage is under construction.
Key Quotes
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense.”
“What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of... You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Prayer Focus
Trusting God's renovation plan for your life even when it involves demolishing structures you thought were permanent
Meditation
Where in your life does God seem to be 'knocking the house about' — doing work that is painful and that you do not yet understand?
Question for Discussion
Lewis says you thought God was building a cottage, but He is building a palace. Have you ever looked back on a painful season and realized God was doing something far bigger than you expected? How can a group support each other in the middle of God's demolition work, before the purpose becomes clear?