Cost
It's been awhile since I've had an abstract, profound sort of entry. Maybe it's time. I say this because last night I again picked up Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Cost of Discipleship. The first time I picked up good ol' Dietrich's book about the cost of grace and following the will of Jesus I read the introduction and had a headache. Methinks that at the time I wasn't ready for the gravity of Bonhoeffer's declaration of what it means to follow Jesus. So I put it on my bookshelf to be read another day. Last night, after cleaning up piles of laundry and doing things like making sure I wouldn't freeze in the middle of the night, I noticed Dietrich's book sitting over there ... calling out to me. And so I picked it up and started reading it again. And this time, I didn't sit and stare and give myself a headache. Bonhoeffer's comments are bold, to say the least, and now after having read through a VERY small portion of the book I'm beginning to wonder about what exactly it means to have grace. The idea of "cheap grace", as Bonhoeffer puts it, is marketable grace, is the type of grace that comes with flowers and chirpy birds and angels with their little harps, it's the type of grace that doesn't include suffering or, as he puts it, cost. But isn't that what Christianity is all about? Free grace? I don't mean this in the sense that now I can go out and steal 3 cars, kill 4 people, and become a prostitute in the name of Jesus because I'll be forgiven for for it. Not at all. What I mean is ... isn't the beauty and wonderful simplicity about loving God the fact that he gives us grace even when we don't deserve it? There's that line that Christians cross between non-faith and faith and once that line is crossed, I agree, I think that there's a cost. Make no doubt about it, persecution is out there. But on the other hand, can I, a mere human, be faulted by my misunderstanding of what grace is? I still contend that if I pray and listen and follow what God is telling me then I will be led a life of grace. On the other hand, I'm like 4 pages into chapter 1. I've got more to read. But I'm wondering ... how do Christians see grace? Is it free? Is it costly? Is it both? Now I'm not so sure ....