Grace

"Cheap" and "Costly" Grace...

cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer says, is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it contains no demand for discipleship. In contrast to cheap grace,

costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Romans 6:1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

Grace,..
The Word says, we are saved by ‘Grace’

So,.. what if we do not really understand what’ the Word ‘Grace’ really means,.. according to God’ definition of ‘Grace’

We must understand ‘Grace’, according to ‘Truth’

Art Katz, used to say, "Truth is everything as God, Himself,sees it”
(end quote)

Truth is God’ righteous judgements in all matters / things.... how He judges.

Is the understanding of the Word ‘Grace’ detrimental? ....Very !

Grace:
"The Devine influence upon the heart,
And it’s reflection in the life”
..... (the hearing of The Word , and the doing of The Word.)
(The Spirit of God drawing us to Him, who is The Word)

Jn.6:44,
"No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:”
V.65,
"And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.”

””””””””””

Eph.2:5-8,
"Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)”

"And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:”

7 "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

8 "For "by grace” are ye saved "through faith”, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”

Faith:
Hearing this Word, by grace, .... believing,.... doing,...(obeying in the Way of His drawing).
* ( faith cometh by hearing, and hearing, by The Word of God)
Faith: hearing,.. believing ... obeying.

The reason I mentioned ‘faith’, is because, there are so many Words that are a part of another Word,.. sort of wraped together.

This is the grace that is not ‘cheap’, that Sherri so graciously posted.

A mighty gift,..but

It cost obedience,.. our will given up.

””””””””♥️
elizabeth

Praise God we are saved by grace through faith. It is by grace that we stand, and His grace is sufficient even in our weakness.

Grace is indeed the unmerited favor of God, but grace is also the operational power of God in us.

By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.(1 Corinthians 15:10)
"Grace is not simply leniency when we have sinned. Grace is the enabling gift and power of God notto sin. Grace is power, not just pardon.” (John Piper)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book this "Cheap grace"
was an exploitation of God's kindness and goodness. It was the very opposite of walking in truth and righteousness but a using of God's grace to trespass against the law of God knowing God's goodness will prevent them from doom.

But Bonhoeffer quickly closes the door on this kind of thinking. Bonhoeffer's 'cheap grace' is what the Apostle Paul called "License to sin".

It was a great message and so many who have read it over the years are quick to remind others that God's grace is not a license to sin, instead it is freedom to live above it.

Marvin: Interesting. According to Titus it is the grace of God that teaches us to deny unGodly lusts and live soberly and righteously. If your experience does not lead you into the life of God and cause you to look like Him, then what you have experienced is not the grace of God, but rather a perversion or deception. Truly God's grace is the very thing that bring freedom from sin and victory over it.

Great text in Titus, thanks for giving food for thought Travis.

The grace of God; the un-earned, unmerited, undeserved favor of God...because God himself is gracious, how is an attribute of God become a teacher?
How can what is 'abstract' teach?

God's favor is that conductor, or way by which the Holy Spirit communicates the mind of God to us.

In thinking about grace, the heart and mind can follow a dozen biblical paths into the word of God to explore it.

But more than biblical exploration is seeing it as ours in Jesus. I have been given grace, I have been taught because God has given me favor, I have hope and love and joy because God has revealed himself to me. God's love abounds to me, his heart is open to me and my heart now has become open to him. This is the result of 'grace'. So the apostle rightly says "the grace of God teaches us" because grace and God's Holy Spirit and the revelation of his word and the known love of God and Jesus precious fellowship with me are all packaged together. With grace comes all of this goodness toward me.

Yet a strange thing about God's grace, until God communicates to us we have it, anyone may speak of it and be thankful in a general way that it exists, but seeing and tasting it comes only by God's goodness toward me...which is altogether unknown to me before he gives it.

There is nothing about God's grace that is cheap, but people cheapen and exploit what they understand in principle but do not identify as belonging to themselves.

The answer to 'cheapening the grace of God' is God's opening our eyes and hearts to what that grace will do to the mind and heart of that same man. To rid ourselves of 'cheapening grace' is God's giving us grace in truth.
Strange as it may sound the answer to all sinfulness is the grace and goodness of God.