If Grace costs me anything...

Disclaimer: I haven't posted all week because I've been at church camp with my boys. I thought I'd go ahead and jump start this week with a piece that I wrote about a year ago. I hope you are blessed by it.

The words shocked me. “If grace costs me anything, then I don't want it.” Brent is just a good old boy. He owns a drive-thru coffee shop and, to hear him tell it, his call in life is to share the gospel with his customers. He learned, a long time ago, that I was a Pentecostal preacher and, from my perspective, it seems as if his call in life is to argue doctrine with me every time I pull through his shop.

Not long ago I pulled into his shop and it was obvious from the first hello that he had been prepping himself for my next visit. He launched into a dissertation on how it was unscriptural to consider baptism as a step in the process of salvation. We bantered back and forth a bit as he prepared my drink. I quoted a few scriptures about baptism and I made an argument based upon the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. However, as the discussion progressed, we moved to the subject of grace and ended up discussing the premise, presented in Romans, that faith and obedience are inseparably linked. After a little while, my drink was finished, a car was waiting and we broke off another engaging conversation.

It happened as I was pulling away, and I must admit that I was totally unprepared for it. As a matter of fact I was a little taken aback when he leaned out of the drive-thru window and hollered after me, “If grace costs me anything, then I don’t want it.” I hit my brakes and paused for a moment and, emboldened, he continued, “If grace costs me anything, then it is not grace anymore.” The car behind me pulled up and I pulled out of the parking lot shaking my head in utter disbelief.

I knew such thinking existed, but I had never heard it put so bluntly. The concept is mind boggling. To believe that the grace of God is acceptable only if it requires nothing in exchange is an incredibly self-centered approach to God. What about the disciples? They walked away from everything to follow Jesus. What about Paul? It caused a total change in his life, even his identity was altered. I shook my head in shock because I’ve always believed that the grace that cost so much at Calvary required something of me in return.

This afternoon, I read the first chapter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Disciplehip.” According to Bonhoeffer, those that would seek to justify sin rather than the sinner have hijacked the message of grace. His premise is solid and his reasoning is sound. I can clearly see where so many took a wrong turn many years ago and perverted the message of grace. As I read, my mind went back to that encounter. It, truly, breaks my heart to hear a sincere young man make such a flawed statement. He really believes that the only way he wants grace is if he doesn’t have to change a thing to get it. The question arises, if God intended to leave his followers just like he found them, then why would he endure the pain and the agony of the cross?

As much as it hurts me to say it, I’ve been witness to this same kind of thinking as it has crept into my generation of Apostolic Pentecostals. It seems that the mentality of the hour revolves around the question of just how little can I do and still be saved. There are those that would say that if you can’t tell me this will send me to Hell then I’m going to do it. Period. The fundamental spirit behind this kind of an approach to serving God is no different than the young man who made the brash statement, "If grace costs me anything then I don’t want it." The end result is the same. It revolves around a mindset that would rather justify lifestyles and fashion choices than to justify the inner man.

Can I humbly say, this afternoon, that no matter what grace costs me, I want it. No matter what I have to leave behind, I’m hungry for it. There is no price too high to pay, no sacrifice too big to make. The old songwriter cut to the chase when he penned the words, “Above all else, I must be saved.”

I firmly believe that God loves you just like you are, but I also believe that He will never leave you that way. I join my voice with that of the early church that proclaimed, I’ve been bought with a price and my life is not my own. Understand this, my consecration and dedication, as manifested by a separated life, are not about earning God’s grace but rather they are about manifesting God’s grace. He made a change in my life and I firmly believe that, if I continue walking with him, that change will be manifest in my life!

We must put an end to the mentality that shuns sacrifice and dedication. It's time to stop the spiritual decay that manifests itself in a desire to please the flesh and appease spirits of this world. We are the children of God. We are called out of darkness and into His marvelous light. It's high time we embraced the costliness of our salvation. Take up your cross, echos the cry of those that gave all they had, and follow Jesus.

This generation my choose a cheap form of grace to the detriment of their own spirituality... But as for me, give me grace -- no matter the cost!