The True Cost of Cheap Grace

I was reading an article by Pastor Joe Schimmel about a young recording artist who professes to be a Christian but continues to act like he did before coming to Christ. I'm really hoping the young man responds to criticism of his lack of Christian fruit by prayer and actual repentance. However it appears that his response is reciting the mantra of his generation "Don't judge me man!" Mister, you claimed to be a Christian, you just allowed everyone in Christ to judge you.

The reason Pastor Joe gave for the young man's attitude of "I can do what ever I want even though I'm a Christian" is "Cheap Grace". I've never come across the expression "Cheap Grace" before, but looking back I've seen that I have been railing against it on this blog. Cheap Grace is also known as Hyper Grace, In The Cost of Discipleship, published in 1937 Dietrich Bonhoeffer defined Cheap Grace as: 

“Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices... Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Bravery

Book Review - The Babylon Code

The BabylonCode – Solving the Bible’s Greatest End-Times Mystery by Paul McGuire and Troy Anderson.

Are we now living in the last days of planet Earth? If so, how will the apocalyptic events foreseen by the ancient prophets unfold? Are the powerful forces now at work to create a global government, economic system, and religion as predicted in the Bible? Unlocking a great biblical mystery that has puzzled scholars for nearly two thousand years, The Babylon Code unearths answers to these momentous questions.

With this breathless introduction, The Babylon Code begins to sprint down a rabbit hole of opinion polls, conspiracy theories, and fantastic quotations all predicting the imminent end of the world as we know it, and this is just the first few pages of the introduction of the book.

The Babylon Code has extended end notes sourcing the quotes used, unfortunately many quotes are from emails and telephone calls between the authors and the sources making any of these quotes impossible to verify at the local library. This book also lists the Bible versions that they use: the King James Version (KJV), the New King James Version (NKJV), the English Standard Version (ESV), the New Revised Standard Version (NSRV), the New Living Translation (NLT), the New English Translation (NET), the Common English Bible (CEB), and The Living Bible (TLB). That’s eight different versions all to say the same thing. Why would an author use so many different bibles? Because with enough different bible versions you can get the bible to say what you want it to say, something quite difficult to do with a single version. 

Random Bits

"I walk through this sinful world as a 

pilgrim in a foreign country" - CH Spurgeon

Pray for the families of the Oregon martyrs. I didn't realize it (because of our worthless lame stream media news) but the shooting rampage at the Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR was directed exclusively at Christians. Chris Harper-Mercer started his rampage by asking people one by one what their religion was. When they said "Christian" he replied "Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second." Then he murdered them.

We don't know the names of the Oregon martyrs but we do know who they are. They're our brothers and sisters and they were killed for their faith in Christ Jesus. We know they are under the altar in God's throne room, and soon they will be given a white robe:

⁹ When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; ¹⁰ and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” ¹¹ And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also. (Revelation 6:9-11)

Obama to Christians: perversions are more important than your constitutional rights.

God Saved My Life - By Killing My Car?

My son, Ben, and I are train nuts. he works at a railroad transloading facility in North Dakota and comes down to visit me here in the railroad Meca of Colorado where we go see trains. This year he came down to see the autumn colors, and the trains. 

We spent Saturday just west of Denver photographing the leaves and dining in one of the finest BBQ joints on earth. After a meal that couldn't be beat we headed up to Silverplume CO to ride the Georgetown Loop Railroad behind the fabled steam locomotive West Side Lumber #9. When we got to the Silverplume Depot we saw a chilling sight - West Side Lumber #9 being dragged into the depot dead in tow. As it passed us we could see that several broken pieces of pistons were piled up in the cab. West Side Lumber #9 had suffered a catastrophic failure and we ended up riding behind a small diesel locomotive engine. It was still a fun way to spend a warm autumn afternoon, but not the same as taming a fire breathing steam locomotive. Little did I know this was to be a harbinger of things to come.