![]() “ 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. What we need, Bonhoeffer said, is costly grace. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” He wrote: “ Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. In his classic book The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned against what he called cheap grace. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Mt.16.24-26) For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus clearly communicated the message of repentance to his disciples: “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. We must turn away from those things that are not pleasing to God (what scripture calls repentance). Receiving God’s grace in Christ requires us to give up our old self-oriented life and receive new life in Christ. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”īut grace is also costly to us. Paul gives us a sense of this in 2 Corinthians 5.21. Embedded deeply within the word “grace” is what it cost God to offer it to us. To talk about grace as just the kindness of God is to miss something profoundly important to the Christian faith. It is free to us in the sense that we cannot earn it. ![]() Keep in mind that while grace is free, it is also very costly. Grace means that God does not give us what we deserve and instead gives us gifts and blessings that we don’t deserve. Grace is God’s love and kindness toward those who are undeserving. ![]() Grace is the Greek word charis, and it means unmerited favor. ![]() Peace is the result and fruit of the Christian life. Grace is the basis and foundation of the Christian life. Paul often began his letters with the introduction “grace and peace.” This is no mere formality. “ Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |