I came across this definition of grace from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book The Cost of Discipleship and it made me reflect how much of grace in my life is costly or cheap?
For although grace is a wonderful thing and I couldn't live without it, it is a word I take too lightly at times, just because grace is generous, free, totally unexpected and, most of all, completely undeserved.
Bonhoeffer wrote:
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.
Precisely because we know that God has already forgiven us our sins BEFORE we ask for forgiveness, there is a complacency and sometimes even a delay before we choose God's ways. We behave merely as believers and not disciples.
Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Discipleship implies surrender, discipline, and at times great sacrifice, but because I have paid a high price, I now have a better appreciation of the true value of grace.
The beauty of costly grace can only be seen when it is actively sought. The beauty of inner peace, abundant joy and a storing up of faith reserves that tide me over in times of spiritual dryness or desolation.
Whether costly or cheap, God's grace is ubiquitous, and something I must be more grateful for daily.
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it:
For although grace is a wonderful thing and I couldn't live without it, it is a word I take too lightly at times, just because grace is generous, free, totally unexpected and, most of all, completely undeserved.
Bonhoeffer wrote:
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.
Precisely because we know that God has already forgiven us our sins BEFORE we ask for forgiveness, there is a complacency and sometimes even a delay before we choose God's ways. We behave merely as believers and not disciples.
Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'
It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.
Discipleship implies surrender, discipline, and at times great sacrifice, but because I have paid a high price, I now have a better appreciation of the true value of grace.
The beauty of costly grace can only be seen when it is actively sought. The beauty of inner peace, abundant joy and a storing up of faith reserves that tide me over in times of spiritual dryness or desolation.
Whether costly or cheap, God's grace is ubiquitous, and something I must be more grateful for daily.
As Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it:
| Earth’s crammed with heaven, | |||
| And every common bush afire with God; | |||
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
|
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