Paying for the Free Stuff

Grace – It’s a hard concept for most of us to accept. It doesn’t seem that it would be that difficult. I mean, really – someone offers you something you didn’t have to pay for, for which you didn’t have to work, and for which nothing is required in return. That’s quite alright when we say that we’re thirsty and would like something to drink and the response is that someone, anyone, buys us a drink, puts it in our hand, and declines payment. Most of us attempt to make a mental note that it’s our turn to buy the next time the need arises.


What do we do when the stakes are a little higher? We know that we could have purchased our drink in most situations, it’s just that at the exact moment we voiced our thirst we didn’t have a means to purchase something to drink. We admire people who donate a kidney while they are still alive. We praise people donating large sums to benevolent causes, even if they do get a tax deduction for their trouble.

What do we do when payment exceeds anything we can ever reimburse, when it is off the chart, when it is undeserved, or, better yet, when we deserve whatever the opposite would be? It tends to make us uncomfortable. Some of us don’t want to be beholden to anyone about anything. We like to “keep our accounts current.”

Others of us are ashamed that we have done things that should have disqualified us from this level of generosity, yet we get it anyway. We know that everyone recognizes we have received something which we did not deserve.

It takes away our sense of achievement somehow. It puts us in debt to the giver. We have a responsibility. Even though it may be exactly what we need or want, we are uncomfortable accepting it. We are even more uncomfortable when we know the giver has given the gift to us only at considerable sacrifice. We turn it down. We refuse. We give it away. We begin the process of paying back that which can never be paid back.

This is why it is so difficult for most of us to accept God’s grace. Oh, we would claim it easily if we could earn it. But, we know we don’t deserve to have it given to us free of charge. We put conditions on ourselves that our Lord and Savior never put upon us. We make laws, rules, and regulations for accepting God’s gift when God, Himself, never put these restrictions on us. We become Pharisees! And, somehow, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that we are indeed deserving of God’s grace, that we have balanced the scales, that we have settled accounts. We think this is our doing instead of something that was done more in spite of us than because of us.

We forget that Christ has already died. Our Heavenly Father took care of this long before we were able to start “earning” our salvation. God did it before we were ever born. We don’t crucify Christ again when we become a Christian. We simply recognize that we are in the middle of the desert, dying of thirst, and someone has brought us Living Water.

The only appropriate response we have is to thank the giver every day of our life, with every breath that we take, with every word that we speak.

Our money can’t buy it; our work can’t build it; only God, Himself, could give such an awesome gift. The next time you worship, remember, worship is your Thank You note for the gift you’ve been given!

Pastor Craig