First of all, grace was extremely costly. It cost Jesus everything. It was bought at a phenomenal price. It was extremely costly.
"Ok," you say. "Sure, John. But it is free to us. Right?" Right. God's grace if free. Through faith, we receive God's grace as a total gift. It is free to us. It costs us nothing...and yet it costs us everything. We are brought into God's family at no cost. We are given a new identity in our baptism. We are now God's kids. Freely He has given us His grace.
How do we live out our free identity? What do we do with God's free gift of grace?
Ironically, answering questions such as these costs us something. It costs us to follow Jesus. It may cost us relationships. It my cost us prestige. It may cost us the "luxury" of pursuing our own interests, our own agenda, or our own pleasures. It may cost us our life.
Our relationship with Jesus is defined by His free gift of grace. Through faith, we receive that gift freely. But living in light of it is a costly journey...and a truly rich and blessed journey.
So are you ready to consider the cost of following Jesus? Are you ready to take seriously your new identity in Christ and considering all of your life in light of that identity? Your time? Your finances? Your decisions? Your family?
This May, we are launching a new sermon series called "Cost". We will be wrestling these questions. We will dig into God's word to consider the cost (and reward) of following Jesus. We will delight in God's grace. We will marvel at the new identity that is ours. We will struggle with how we are living...and how He desires us to live as His people.
Are you ready to follow Jesus? To admit that your life is no longer about you...but rather is about Him? Then get ready...
It's not surprising that there's no comments yet. Here we are April 25th! Either the readers have no comments and are along for by the ride wherever it takes them, or they haven't read it, or they don't know what it means to follow Jesus, or perhaps it's too scary to even think about much less do the following, whatever that entails or maybe the reader just simply don't care, "I've got all I want of God" I've it said. Personally, I am in the scared catagory for the simple reason that I am a failure at following and some of the following things don't make sense, from my earthly perspective, to me, and it's flat out hard to set myself aside to follow Jesus. I can praise, thank, confess, try hard, tithe, give in addition to tithing, etc. BUT I'll betcha there's more to it that you're gonna dredge up out of God's Word -- oh, I forgot this one: maybe I am going to have to be a doormat (a doorman would better!)
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