The gift of God. Grace, eternal life, salvation, mercy, call to discipleship, all of these are the gifts of God. We are truly spoiled by God’s love for us, for he lavishes gifts upon us. God is the giver of every good gift. God loves us so much that he gives us a share in his divine nature and eternal life as a gift. “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God.” (Eph 2,8) If we ask for any of God’s good gifts, he is pleased to bestow them upon us. They are free for the asking. “Jesus answered and said to her (the Samaritan Woman), “If you knew the gift and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water…the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4) God’s gifts, God’s grace, is free but it is not cheap. We have a hard time understanding and reconciling the paradox that something can be a free gift and yet can cost us so much. We don’t know or understand the gift of God. How can a gift of such infinite worth be given away so freely?

When we receive something as a free gift, when someone else has paid the price, we have a tendency to not recognize the true value of what we have received. We don’t always appreciate the true worth of what we have been given as a gift. God gives us daily graces, life, love, mercy, salvation but we often fail to recognize his gifts and offer thanksgiving for them. Too often we take them for granted. This is evidenced when we are called to “Eucharist” each Sunday but many fail to come to offer their thanksgiving.

God’s grace is not cheap, it is costly, and it is Jesus who has paid the price and who tells us in the gospel that if we do not value God’s gift and make it the most valuable treasure in our lives, we are not worthy to be his disciples. Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes the classic distinction between cheap grace and costly grace in his book, The Cost of Discipleship: “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, 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 treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it asks us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man 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 his Son: “you were bought at a price,” and what cost God much, cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

Before we begin the life of faith and discipleship we should first understand the costs. Discipleship entails our bearing daily the crosses that come to us. Discipleship means dispossessing ourselves of all of our earthly goods so that we may possess the true treasure of heaven. Jesus is that treasure and the Father is pleased to give him freely to us.