Free Grace, Costly Following

Perhaps the greatest theme in the Bible is that of God’s Grace.  Grace is God’s unmerited favor, goodness, blessing, and salvation offered to us.  Unmerited.  It’s a word we don’t use too often anymore.  In fact in our culture we probably offer and live with a lot of stipulated grace.   “I will love you if … I will forgive you if … I will honor you if ….”  I mean we don’t actually say it that way, but we all know and sense the implication in the tone of people.

But not with God.  God’s offer of “salvation,” which has more than just a future eternal destiny in mind – it has our today and everyday in mind too – is based not on the merits of what we can do to please God or accomplish to impress God or how “cleaned up” we can get before we turn to God.  God’s grace is based on who He is!  And he offers it freely – that is without merit – to us.  There are no hoops to jump through.  Click on this verse – Ephesians 2:1-10 to see one example.

While his offer to us is free, our response to him is costly.  This too is a Biblical theme woven throughout.  In response to God’s grace we follow his lead for our lives and it will always cost us something.  This is why people actually turned away from following Jesus.  Even though his grace was free - unmerited, the cost to take his name (Christian) was too high.   

That’s the difference between the crowd and the disciples.  The crowd followed at a distance, never willing to pay the price to follow.  The disciples, they left home,changed business, changed their names, gave to the poor, supported the widows, were rejected, changed their work schedules, ended destructive habits, turned the other cheek, accepted instead of hated, embraced instead of resisted, honored all people, and – for some – died, all because they accepted God’s free grace and put their faith in Christ.

I worry that at times we are so consumed with the free gift of God’s unmerited Grace that we forget (refuse, ignore, get too busy) to follow God. 

We have a saying in America, “you get what you pay for.”  Here’s a hard truth, if following God isn’t costing us something, then maybe we’re not really following him at all.

Again, I’m not talking about the offer of salvation (eternal and temporal); I’m talking about how we respond to being “saved by grace.” 

As we start Christ Church there are some things we will have to sacrifice - price a pay - as we follow God’s lead in this venture:  time, money, blood-sweat-tears (see yesterday’s post), some friends (both inside [#smh] and outside the church), pride & humility, sleepless nights, extended hours, and more.  But that’s what happens when we follow Christ.  We sacrifice for him, our faith, for God because we understand his Grace.

• Why would we do this:  so that the people who will find Christ Church will find a church where they understand God’s unmerited favor:  so that a home can be healed, relationships restored, hope strengthened, peace gained, healing applied, and, someday, realize an eternal destiny in heaven.  
• We do it because Church Should Be Simple:  Love God and Love People!

If you'd like to join us in this journey, then email us and let us get to know you.  Also, if you'd like to make a donation to help Christ Church get up and get going, you can forward it to our address:  170 Gateway Dr., Fairview, PA  16415.

Are you getting what you paid for?

-Ben