Why Can We Not Finish?

Luke 14:27-30 (KJV) ²⁷ And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.  ²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?  ²⁹ Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, ³⁰ Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

Jesus linked this parable to His statement concerning being a disciple.  The cost of the "building" is to bear our cross and follow Jesus.  Jesus finished His work on earth.  He lived the life of "man in God's image".  If we look closely at the life of Jesus, we see "the bottom line" is expressed in John 5:30 (NASB) ³⁰ “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.   To walk out for us the Way, to be the Way, and to reveal to us the Way, Jesus lived the life of God's expectation: man in God's image.  For us to truly say, "I can do nothing of my own initiative", we will have overcome our flesh nature and taken on His nature.  To die to self and desire nothing but the Will of the Father, we will be following Jesus in the truest sense.

What will it cost us to accomplish this?  To bring every thought into obedience of Jesus Christ, to bring every imagination into His control, and, to so subdue our tongue, that we speak only what the Spirit gives us to say.  I don't know about you, but I have a great amount of work to do to enter into His rest.  But that is what His rest means to us: to cease from our own works.  To be anxious for nothing is a labor to enter into His rest.  To cease from our vain imaginations is a labor to enter into His rest.  Yet to labor thus is to cease from our own works.  We are not passive, doing nothing.  We enter the flow of His works.  We build in conjunction with Him to see His Will accomplished.  We allow His peace to rule our hearts and minds.