Thursday, June 06, 2013

Cheap Grace.....anything but


Article from Anne Marie Miller that is just too good not to repost.

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices…

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner…

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…

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 kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift that must be asked for, the door at which one must knock.

These are words that could have been written today. But they weren’t. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote them in the 1930′s – when he was in his late twenties.

This is a timeless truth that we should contemplate maybe more now in our commercialized, diagrammed culture.