Grace: A Free but Costly Gift

Imagine yourself in one of these situations:

• You have a large debt and no means to pay it.
• You committed a crime, were brought before the law, and were found guilty.
• You took the most important exam of your life, did not study, and failed miserably.
• You filled your car’s gas tank, and when it was time to pay, your credit card was declined.

That is our spiritual situation. We owe a debt we cannot pay. We have broken God’s law with our thoughts, our words, our actions, our desires. We sat the exam of holiness and integrity completely unprepared, and we failed. We filled the tank of life with the appearance of happiness, only to discover there was nothing underneath strong enough to hold up the lie.

So what is God supposed to do if He is truly good?

Maybe we expect Him to reset the debt to zero, erase the sentence, cancel the exam, and wave us off the lot with a full tank, no charge. But that would not be grace. That would be indulgence. It would leave every mistake without accountability and every wound without a lesson.

God is not a permissive Father. But neither is He a tyrant who delights in our pain. He does not squeeze the last cent out of us, throw us into prison, or laugh while we fail. He is just. And justice means that debts, crimes, failures, and sins must be answered for.

That is the heart of grace: everything we were supposed to pay, He paid for us. Grace is not God shrugging, “Let’s just forget about it.” Grace is God saying, “I will take responsibility for what you could never survive.” He is just, and justice demanded that someone pay. That someone was Himself.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Romans 3:21–26 (NIV)

Grace as a Free Gift

On September 15, 2008, I took my girlfriend out to enjoy the holiday. We had lunch and then visited Zoo Ave in La Garita de Alajuela. It felt like an ordinary day. But that evening, over dinner at an Argentine restaurant, I “unexpectedly” pulled out an engagement ring and proposed right there.

Six months later we were married, and ever since I have been, officially, the happiest and most fortunate man in this world and beyond.

She had no idea she would receive such a significant gift that day. Suddenly, her bare ring finger was bare no longer. Without expecting it, and without knowing all that had happened to make it possible, that night became a before and after in her life.

That is exactly how it was when we met Jesus. Unexpectedly, out of nowhere, His love found us. No matter our past, His embrace came to stay and to change our lives forever. Do you remember what your life was like before you met Him? He came like rain under a clear sun, like a thief in the night, like snow in summer.

Grace as a Costly Gift

What we often fail to consider is everything that happened beforehand.

Meli did not know that months earlier I had started saving. She did not know that the trip to the United States I took fifteen days before was not just sightseeing and shopping. She had no idea I spent an entire day walking the malls of Orlando, hunting for the most valuable, most special gift I had ever imagined giving. On that trip I even risked my health and temporarily damaged my ears, because a cold worsened under the pressure of the flight.

At the restaurant, all she had to do was receive the gift. But long before that moment, I had to save, plan, travel, run, search, choose, and buy, doing a hundred things so that she could receive a ring worthy of her.

Meli still does not know exactly how much that ring cost me.

The same is true with Jesus. We may never fully grasp the magnitude of the gift of salvation. You were not even born when He planned it, emptied Himself, was born, grew up, prepared, acted, suffered, stayed silent, died, and rose again, so that today, thousands of years later, you could receive the free gift of salvation.

Free, but infinitely costly.

Only God Himself could pay that price, and He paid it with His own life: blood flowing from His side, thorns driven into His head, nails tearing through His hands and feet. Your debt did not erase itself. Your crime did not simply go unpunished. He died, justly, on that cross so that you and I would never have to pay with our own lives. The punishment that brought us peace fell on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:1–10 (NIV)

Do you see now why you owe everything to Jesus? He did not take the record of charges against you and quietly hide it where no one would find it. He nailed it to Himself on the cross. He did it because He is just, and His justice cannot simply overlook sin.

Today is a perfect day to surrender your life to Him in gratitude for that infinite, undeserved, inexplicable gift: forgiveness, mercy, salvation, blessing, and the gift of His own Spirit, so that you can live a full life with purpose.

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Titus 2:11–14 (NIV)

Because we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. And because He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He could be both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.