Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Double Blessing (p. 123). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) We are for the most part good at the actual cost but not the opportunity cost. Mark says, “An actual cost is an expenditure. It shows up on your balance sheet as a liability, and it’s relatively easy to account for. An opportunity cost is a hidden cost. It’s the loss of potential gain, often because of indecision or inaction.” Luke 14:28 (NLT) says, “Don’t begin until you count the cost.” Mark continues, “Jesus spoke those words in the context of a construction project, but they are true of a thousand things. When it comes to counting the cost, most people fail to realize that it’s a two-sided coin. Most of us are pretty good at counting the actual cost. Counting opportunity cost? Not so much. Why? Because opportunity cost involves scenario planning and systems thinking. And when you try t

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Double Blessing (p. 114). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Mark explains, “The technical term is nephelococcygia , in case you care. If you have a dream that is gathering dust, you need to seed the clouds with a step of faith. The last two words of Mark’s gospel are ‘signs following.’ (Mark 16:20, KJV) We wish they were ‘signs preceding,’ right? It would be so much easier!   We also wish the Lord’s Prayer said, ‘Give us this year our yearly bread.’ Why? Because then we wouldn’t have to trust God on a daily basis! God loves us too much to short-circuit our daily dependence on Him with too much of anything.” Mark goes on, “I have no doubt that God is preparing good works in advance. (Ephesians 2:10) But more often than not, we’ve got to take a step of faith in the direction of that good work. It would have been much easier for the disciples to stay in the co

A thought by Mark Batterson from his book, Double Blessing (p. 112). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) And that is not what we want, is it? Make says, “I wasn’t ready to get married. Is anyone? Lora and I weren’t ready to have children. Who is? I wasn’t ready to pastor a church at twenty-five. We weren’t ready to invest in missions, launch a second campus, open a coffeehouse, or build out a city block into a prototype campus, child-development center, and mixed-use marketplace. “Yes, you need to pray like there’s no tomorrow. But you also have to plan like there is one! God doesn’t bless a lack of planning any more than a lack of praying. That said, the planets will never be perfectly aligned. At some point, you’ve got to quit making excuses. You have to pick up the plow and start seeding the soil. Or in this case, the clouds!” He goes on, “We have a little mantra at NCC: ‘Go, set, ready!’ Th