Have We Cheapened Grace?

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer book" The Cost of Discipleship" he opens with the words "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church". If I would have read those words before I knew Bonhoeffers' story, I would of just read through it quickly, and not understood or even cared what they meant. Cheap grace! What is it? As a Christian living in America, I have become accustomed to having the freedom to worship as I please. When Americans think of persecution we may think of others disagreeing with our beliefs or even picking on us for our belief system. Maybe family members ridicule us and slander us behind our backs. But if we look past our lack of understanding what real persecution really is about, we see we haven't suffered at all for the freedom we sometimes take for granted.

As we look at Christians such as Bonhoeffer we see he was not just persecuted by the Nazi's in World War II but also by his church. The Lutheran German church gave its allegiance to Adolph Hitler while Jews were stripped of the citizenship and ultimate sent to their deaths at the concentration camps. Bonhoeffer was even threatened by his own Lutheran bishop to keep silent about the Jewish question or something dreadful would happen to him. The church was in error about its role in a country that was living in contrast to it Christian beliefs. He could not be silent even if it meant his death. As in Christ’s own words " I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out (Luke 19:40).”

How has your country set itself against Christian beliefs and how have churches looked past the gospel to create their own set of principles and called them Christian. Do we sit in our comfortable pews and stay silent? Have we accepted grace as a normal part of our day while forgetting what was given so that we could have our freedom? Or how Christians such as Polycarp, John Huss, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther to name a few, have been threatened or killed so we may know and live in freedom. Not just freedom of a free nation but the freedom to know Christ by their examples. We need to look at the ultimate example of the cost of freedom by our Lord Jesus Christ. He gave up His life so that we can be free from the bondage of sin and its eternal consequences. As we look at Christ do we still cheapen grace and forget what a costly price was paid for it?