May 27 - Galatians 5:13

For you were

called to freedom, brothers.

Only do not use your freedom

as an opportunity for the flesh,

but through love serve one another.

Galatians 5:13

 

Nowadays, our world is filled with too many easy and tempting “opportunit[ies] for the flesh.”

 

The world actually promotes and endorses them.

 

Sadly, too many Christians promote and endorse them too.

 

The logic of too many goes like this … God loves me. (True.) God forgives me. (True.) Therefore, I can do whatever I want because I’ll be forgiven! (Ouch.)

 

Most “good Christians” aren’t brazen enough to say that out loud. Nevertheless, many think it. And they wink at others actions – excusing friends, before friends have ever thought to repent.

 

Yes, too many use God’s grace as a get out of jail-free-card. But that’s a perversion of God’s grace! When St. Paul was introducing the Church at Rome to the richness of the Theology of Grace, he stopped and said, “Wait!” He said, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Absolutely not! (Indeed, God forbid!) Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?” (Rom 6:1-2).

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it like this: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church.”

 

I would personalize Bonhoeffer’s statement, saying, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of many lives and marriages.” In the name of freedom and fun, too many people are undermining the foundation of the joy and integrity.

 

Day-by-day, they may not notice. They may just be “having fun.” But trust me as a pastor, most of my counseling comes from the long-term repercussions of cracked foundations.

 

“Cheap grace, says Bonhoeffer, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance … grace without discipleship [… and holiness] without the cross. … We are fighting to-day for costly grace. … Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again … Such grace 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 codemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son …and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.”

 

Question: How many of us follow the ways of culture? How many of us follow our own desires? That may seem normal, but it has nothing to do with an authentic Christian life! When asking what we are to follow, Bonhoeffer outlines it like this: “Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him.”  

 

Question: You know the places in your life, desires, and behaviors where you are vulnerable. Name three of them: 1) ____________, 2) ___________, 3) ____________. For each of these, which leading do you tend to follow – culture’s morays, personal desires, or Christ’s call? Why? And what might you need to do to change?

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who likes a good deal,

but does not like anything

that is cheap (including grace)