From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:17
This weekend, my father-in-law’s cell phone stopped working. We tried to shut it down and then restart it. Later my son removed the battery and then rebooted the phone to no avail. The only solution was a new phone.
In our spiritually dead lives, we also are in need of a reboot – we need Christ to brings us to life as a new creation.
Last week I finished, Five Lies of Our Christian Age, a new book by Rosaria Butterfield. Throughout the book she focuses again and again on the topics of repentance and sanctification as a response to some of the lies from the world around us that have crept into the church. I am reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s quote –
Cheap grace is the idea that “grace” did it all for me so I do not need to change my lifestyle. The believer who accepts the idea of “cheap grace” thinks he can continue to live like the rest of the world. Instead of following Christ in a radical way, the Christian lost in cheap grace thinks he can simply enjoy the consolations of his grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Among the thoughts Bonhoeffer includes is the general lack of repentance found in the church. What was true in the mid 1930’s when he wrote this is still true today.
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Bonhoeffer goes on to describe “Costly Grace.”-
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. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It 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 condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
Costly grace costs us our lives, and that grace allows us to live our only true life.
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