Freedom at a Price

It’s the first week of the year and I am committed to getting over those habitual sins that keep bogging me down. I hope you are too. Jesus came to set us free. There is no bondage that He cannot remove, there is no sin that He has not overcome.

But it comes with a cost. Are you willing to give it your all? Are you willing to deny yourself?

Here’s what Dietrich Bonheoffer says about that kind of grace – costly grace – in his book The Cost of Discipleship:

“Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap…?

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate…

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy (for) which the merchant will sell all his goods…

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

John Macarthur add this about grace and repentance:

“The contemporary church has the idea that salvation is only the granting of eternal life, not necessarily the liberation of a sinner from the bondage of his iniquity. We tell people that God loves them and has a wonderful plan for their lives, but that is only half the truth. God also hates sin and will punish unrepentant sinners with eternal torment. No gospel presentation is complete if it avoids or conceals those facts. Any message that fails to define and confront the severity of personal sin is a deficient gospel. And any “salvation” that does not alter a lifestyle of sin and transform the heart of the sinner is not a genuine salvation”.

In Galatians 5:1 Paul the Apostle says this about Christ:

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do no submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

I want 2011 to be the year of freedom for me. Will you join me in it?

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