There is a conundrum in a recent TV ad for a weight loss program. First, it tells me that I can join up for free but then it tells me that "some purchase is required." It seems  somewhat of a contradiction, don't you think?

There's always a catch. Nothing in  life is free.  Read the fine print. If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch (especially in this case). I think I have run out of clichés and old adages. You're free to come up with your own - no charge!

When I became a member of the Kiwanis in Montreal, there were dues, although I think they cut me some slack because I was clergy. When I joined a fitness club (no laughing, please!) there were dues. I might download  a game app for my tablet for free but there are usually extra components I have to buy to continue the game. There is no real fee to join a church, although they may hand you a box of envelopes or a PAR slip.

It was the great theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (executed by the Nazis during WWII for alleged treason) who coined the phrase "cheap grace." Working from memory since his book The Cost of Discipleship is buried in a box somewhere, cheap grace is accepting the free, unconditional grace of God  but it making no difference and showing no results or fruit in our discipleship.

God's grace is absolutely free. You can't earn it, buy it, bargain for it, work for it or find it at Value Village at a discount  price.  You receive it as a gift. It's yours to keep and savour.  There are great theological debates about whether one can lose it.

It becomes cheap grace only when  we let grace atrophy. Some exercise of that grace is required.  Don't become  a pew potato. Don't neglect the fruit of the Spirit. There are responsibilities, right attitudes, best behavior, active consequences, purposeful thought and meaningful prayer when we carry around the name of Jesus.

Grace is free; you  can join  the body of believers for free; but some purchase, i.e. some grip on the road of faith, is necessary.

"Work out your faith in fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure," (Phil 2:12-13)

Dale

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