Here is the thought I began this study on: Many talk and teach about grace but few, very few, are comfortable with the price.
Grace is reciprocal. That is how the Greeks viewed it even when Solomon was dedicating his temple. So this isn’t some new facet that Paul created when he used the word in all of his letters. He drew on its history with a people who lived daily within a form of grace. They knew of the price grace established in their lives with men but now, God steps in and turns the tables on them.
So are you comfortable with the price of the Father turning the tables on you? What does this mean? Paul tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians that God was in Christ on the cross reconciling the world to himself. Yet the price that many don’t find uncomfortable is that God did not charge their trespasses, their faults, their slip ups, their offenses, their sins against them. No harm, no foul.
The tables turn when retribution no longer is the model, the representation of who we always thought God was. The price of grace in this area requires us to abandon our idol of a vengeful God for the Father who Jesus showed us; a loving, caring Father who desires above all else to be in fellowship with us.
Sure we talk about fellowship happening to us, but then we exact vengeance in some small insignificant way and think that were just following the pattern God showed in the bible so we’re justified. The price of grace sits comfortably until we can’t return the “favor” of displeasure.
Are you comfortable with the price of offering every cheek knowing another slap is coming? Is the price of realizing all of us stand equal through Christ, even the worst of us, comfort to your soul? Can you find the price of comfort knowing your pound of flesh demanded will never materialize?
The price of grace is more than we’ve ever considered if all we’ve ever considered was freedom from sin.
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