Costly grace

'Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.' Bonhoeffer wrote this in 1937, yet we seem to have learned very little.

'Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth . . . Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. . . . Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a [person] 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' from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship