Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace

"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 which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock."

The passage above is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (pp. 35-47)

Its from his book called "The Cost of Discipleship". i literally just started it, 2 weeks ago and i have only gone through 1 chapter. i have just been dumb-founded by it. its so much to take in.

i have been thinking a lot about this idea of grace. i have read that, and this last Wednesday we had at Shift Students Mike Foster from People of the Second Chance (check them out here) speak about grace. so lets just say its been around me a lot.

this whole cheap grace thing is something....something that i feel i take advantage of. cheap grace is believing in the idea of God's grace when you know you are about to do something wrong and you do it anyways because you have the idea that God is going to forgive you anyways for doing it. it is a preemptive sin, you know its a sin and you do it cause God is going to forgive you and give you grace. ill admit, i have done this before.

Eph. 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God"

how dare we take advantage of this gift? and how often do we do this? daily? weekly? God is offering this amazing, amazing gift and we constantly take advantage of it. just because we know we are going to be forgiven because that's what God does, doesn't mean we go out and sin.

Grace is at a cost. costly grace is what we need to seek after. Bonhoeffer says this grace is "It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him."

Costly grace is the idea that we will give up everything we have to follow who God is because that's how much we love him, and when we mess up, and we will mess up, because we have given up everything for God, is when he presents us with the best present anyone could ever receive, Grace. Grace is costly because it demands everything of us, all of us. and its out of that love we receive Grace in which we would gladly give everything up for Christ.

i just don't like the fact that i have taken advantage of this. its like what Jeff Vines (senior pastor of Christ's Church of the Valley) says, grace is this huge safety net. the purpose of the safety net is to catch us when we are fully devoted to Christ and we are all gun-hoe for Christ and the net is there for when we sin and fall to catch us in God's grace. we would be miss using the safety net if we didn't even try to follow and just jump straight into the net.

cheap grace vs. costly grace.

which one are you receiving?