Today, we discussed John the Baptist's forceful call to repentance. It seems today that repentance is all too often neglected in many pulpits/churches. It got me to thinking of a well known, but oft neglected statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Consider these penetrating words:
Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine...no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin....Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance....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....Such grace is costly...because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life....Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him....The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship).
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