Late last Fall, I was sitting in the stands at my grandson Reese’s football game. I was sitting next to my oldest granddaughter, Audrey, who was, at the time, a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school. She turned to me and asked “Granddaddy” do you trust me?” I was somewhat taken aback by the question, but I immediately replied, “Of course I do, sweetheart!” “Good”, she said .”May I use your car to take my drivers license test?” Like any good grandfather, I said “yes”. At the moment she asked to use my car, I had to make a decision. “Do I really trust her to take care of my car?” It was one thing to glibly say I trusted her, but to commit myself to a promise was quite another thing. I had to count the cost of my commitment.
Scripture speaks of counting the cost of commitment:
Luke 14:28-33 says,
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one of my heroes of the Christian faith. His great work of Christian literature is “The Cost of Discipleship” In this book; he speaks of the cost of Christian commitment. Please allow me to quote from his book.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Cheap Grace
“Let the Christian rest content with his worldliness and with this renunciation of any higher standard than the world. He is living for the sake of the world rather than for the sake of grace. Let him be comforted and rest assured in his possession of this grace - for grace alone does everything. Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace!
That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sins departs.
Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.
Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.
It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye, which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.
Costly grace is the gospel, which must be sought again and again, the gift, which must the asked for, the door at which, a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.
Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
The question stands before us….you and me. Are we willing to count the cost of true commitment to following Christ?
Oh, by the way, last Friday Audrey passed the drivers test with flying colors and returned the car intact as I knew she would.
MINISTRY NEWS:
• Men’s Retreat held Jan.21-24 at Isle of Palms, South Carolina.
• Friday Morning Group going well, finishing study of “Mere Christianity”
• Tuesday Night Neighborhood Group studying “Man In The Mirror”
• Individual meetings with men fruitful
Christ - The ReeseSource - The Newsletter of Net Work Ministries, Inc.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
Christ - The Reese Source - December 2009 Edition
Welcome to the latest installment of “The Adventures of Buck and Peggy.”
But first, a word from our sponsor:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
“He will never leave or forsake you.”
“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever”
When we last left Buck and Peggy, they were dealing with the after-effects of Buck’s automobile accident, thankful for God’s protection. It is now mid-day on a cold and rainy Friday. The temperature is hovering in the mid thirties. Buck is on his way to a lunch appointment. His cell phone rings. It is Peggy telling him he must get home right away. She tells him that a large hickory tree has fallen across the driveway and has taken out all the power, phone, and cable lines.
Buck realizes that there is a serious problem. Without power the sump pump, which has rescued us from flooding in the sub-basement, will not work without power. The ground has been saturated by many days of rain so we are assured that the sump well will soon fill to overflowing. Buck realizes he is, at that moment, only a block away from his dear friend Mark Ryckman, who is in the environmental remediation business. Buck calls and finds him in his office and tells him the situation. Mark tells him to come on to the office. He has a generator and chain saw and has one of his assistants load them on a truck and follow him home. They arrive to find the tree blocking the way to the garage and the sub-basement. Working fast with the chain saw, they make way to get the generator in place, cranked up and running. Just as the water in the sump well is about to overflow into the furnace, the sump pump engages and drains the water safely away.
The next task is to get the power back on. Buck calls the power company. Amazingly, they show up within the hour, but discover that they cannot connect the power until an electrician repairs the wiring that has been ripped loose from the house. After one unsuccessful try, a call is placed to an electrician recommended by our builder. He is on another job, but leaves that to come help us, again within an hour’s time. He quickly makes the repairs and leaves with our immense gratitude. We place another call to the power company showing up yet again within an hour and restore the power. From the time of Peggy initially calls Buck until power was restored was about four hours!
We still have to deal with the telephone and cable lines. Buck places a call to the company, which handles both. The customer service rep, located in an unknown country, is told three times that we need a service technician to re-connect the wires from the telephone pole to the house. Of course, the next day who should show up but an inside technician! He says he will put in another service order. Buck has visions of having service restored by next summer! However, the kind service technician puts in a call to his supervisor, who is actually off duty. He arranges for someone to come out that day! Voila! An hour later, our phone and cable service are restored!
Now, people, I don’t know if you believe in everyday miracles. I don’t know if you believe in God’s intervention in our day-to-day lives, but Buck and Peggy sure do! In this day of “customer no-service” to have the power company come out twice within an hour of each call, having a generator immediately available, and most of all, to have a cable company get someone out within an hour of the call is purely divine intervention! God is intimately concerned with your everyday life as Buck and Peggy have experienced time-after-time this year.
And now, a final word from our sponsor:
“Humble yourselves under God’s strong hand, and, in His own good time, He will lift you up. You can cast the whole weight of your anxieties on Him for you are His personal concern.”
Stay tuned for more “The Adventures of Buck and Peggy”
But first, a word from our sponsor:
“Taste and see that the Lord is good!”
“He will never leave or forsake you.”
“Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever”
When we last left Buck and Peggy, they were dealing with the after-effects of Buck’s automobile accident, thankful for God’s protection. It is now mid-day on a cold and rainy Friday. The temperature is hovering in the mid thirties. Buck is on his way to a lunch appointment. His cell phone rings. It is Peggy telling him he must get home right away. She tells him that a large hickory tree has fallen across the driveway and has taken out all the power, phone, and cable lines.
Buck realizes that there is a serious problem. Without power the sump pump, which has rescued us from flooding in the sub-basement, will not work without power. The ground has been saturated by many days of rain so we are assured that the sump well will soon fill to overflowing. Buck realizes he is, at that moment, only a block away from his dear friend Mark Ryckman, who is in the environmental remediation business. Buck calls and finds him in his office and tells him the situation. Mark tells him to come on to the office. He has a generator and chain saw and has one of his assistants load them on a truck and follow him home. They arrive to find the tree blocking the way to the garage and the sub-basement. Working fast with the chain saw, they make way to get the generator in place, cranked up and running. Just as the water in the sump well is about to overflow into the furnace, the sump pump engages and drains the water safely away.
The next task is to get the power back on. Buck calls the power company. Amazingly, they show up within the hour, but discover that they cannot connect the power until an electrician repairs the wiring that has been ripped loose from the house. After one unsuccessful try, a call is placed to an electrician recommended by our builder. He is on another job, but leaves that to come help us, again within an hour’s time. He quickly makes the repairs and leaves with our immense gratitude. We place another call to the power company showing up yet again within an hour and restore the power. From the time of Peggy initially calls Buck until power was restored was about four hours!
We still have to deal with the telephone and cable lines. Buck places a call to the company, which handles both. The customer service rep, located in an unknown country, is told three times that we need a service technician to re-connect the wires from the telephone pole to the house. Of course, the next day who should show up but an inside technician! He says he will put in another service order. Buck has visions of having service restored by next summer! However, the kind service technician puts in a call to his supervisor, who is actually off duty. He arranges for someone to come out that day! Voila! An hour later, our phone and cable service are restored!
Now, people, I don’t know if you believe in everyday miracles. I don’t know if you believe in God’s intervention in our day-to-day lives, but Buck and Peggy sure do! In this day of “customer no-service” to have the power company come out twice within an hour of each call, having a generator immediately available, and most of all, to have a cable company get someone out within an hour of the call is purely divine intervention! God is intimately concerned with your everyday life as Buck and Peggy have experienced time-after-time this year.
And now, a final word from our sponsor:
“Humble yourselves under God’s strong hand, and, in His own good time, He will lift you up. You can cast the whole weight of your anxieties on Him for you are His personal concern.”
Stay tuned for more “The Adventures of Buck and Peggy”