CHEAP GRACE

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 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 us our life, and it is grace because it gives us 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 God's Son: "you 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 God's Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.
(copied from A year with Deitrich Bonhoeffer, p.209)

NO CONDEMNATION

Condemned! I stood before the Judge in fear
His gavel bringing silence to the Court
The sentence for the broken Law was given
In horror I fell prostrate to the floor.

I pled to have my case somehow commuted
For deeds of charity that I had done
Then tried to show my deep religious fervor
By all the accolades that I had won.

But when His blaze of Glory fell upon me
There was no scale of measure to compare
For sin polluted all my human nature
And only filthy rags as proof to wear.

Then suddenly the weight of hell engulfed me
I could not look upon His holy face
But from a broken heart I cried for mercy
And from His throne there flowed redeeming grace.

The Judge stepped down and taking off His garments
The sinless Son of God in human flesh
Stood in my place before His Court of Justice
And paid the fullest price for all my sin.

So now in Christ there is no condemnation
Loves greatest sacrifice is all-complete
Praise floods my soul with love and adoration
And through the ages worship at His feet.
--B. Pent

AMERICA IN THE BALANCE

At about the time our original 13 States adopted their new Constitution, in the year 1787, Alexander Tyler (a Scottish history professor at The University of Edinburgh) had this to say about "The Fall of The Athenian Republic" some 2,000 years prior."

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
(Source unknown)