Ode to Cheap Grace

I have often struggled with the idea that grace is free, and yet grace is costly. Bonhoeffer reminds us in his Cost of discipleship that if God's free grace is seen as cheap grace, than the church has some major problems: "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church…Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before." Today we might add that cheap grace is Therapeutic Moralistic Deism. It is God as life guard or guidance counselor. Cheap grace is church as weekly pick me up, or a nice break from the kids (you already know how I feel about that one).

While I have no problem rejecting the results of cheap grace I still can't get my head around this idea that God's grace freely given is a costly grace. Once again I can do no better than to quote the words of Bonhoeffer: "Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift that must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."

I think maybe God's grace can be both free and costly because, though it is freely given, we are unable to freely receive it. It costs us nothing for God to extend His grace, but it costs us everything to receive it. God's grace is not cheap because we cannot truly except it and be unchanged. If we allow ourselves to truly receive God's grace than we our fundamentally different. This is why Augustine could say "Love God, than do as you please." God's grace is waiting there for us to freely have, but accepting that free gift will cost us everything.

We need to count the cost, are we really willing to give up our old way of life, are we willing to give up this world. We are encouraged to count the cost, to consider the price. We are also encouraged to consider the prize and if we truly understand we are like the man who gives up all he has to gain the plot of land with the buried treasure. It's a no brainer all we have is nothing in comparison to the "buried treasure."

We don't have to work to earn God's grace, but we must work diligently to receive it. One thing I know for sure, it's worth the effort.