Saturday, November 6, 2010

"And Jesus said to them: 'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.'" Mark 1:17

Cheap grace is a deadly enemy of the Church.

Grace without a price; grace without a cost. We suppose the account has been paid in advance and, because it has, everything can be had for nothing. The "Christian" today lives like the rest of the world, modeling himself on the world' standards - rebelling against the free and boundless grace of God, enjoying the consolations of grace without repenting of sin, departing from sin and allowing sin to depart from him.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, grace without His Word.

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, the kingly rule of Christ in our lives. The call of Jesus Christ to come - at which the disciple leaves all and follows Him.

Costly grace cost God the life of His Son, it will cost a man his life as well, yet it is grace that will return true life to that same man; condemning sin, justifying the sinner. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Him. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and contrite heart, compelling a man to submit to the yoke and come.

[The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer]

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell and great was it's fall." Matthew 7:24-28

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