Freely

being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. – Romans 3.24-26

'if it seems too good to be true it probably is.' Or, as some may put it 'If it seem to good to be true it is.' Those are generally true statements. Anyone who has fallen for some ad on the telly or clicked on some link or replied to some email knows it.

When we were fist married Mary and I joined a 'buyers club' that was going to save us a fortune. All we had to do was pay $500 in convenient instalments and we could save a fortune on almost anything we had to buy. We were going to recoup it many times over.

The problem is that the plan was virtually unusable and we were stuck. It was an expensive lesson. I think by the time we paid the 500 and the 'small instalment fees' it cost us over $600 and we only saved about $50 in our shopping.  We learned our lesson then. Things in life are not free.

But let’s say that someone had bought the membership for us. Let’s say that we got all the benefits without paying the cost. In that case the plan would have been provided freely for us.

And thus it is with justification, being brought into line with God’s standard of perfection. I could never achieve it. The price was heavy, but I could never pay it. So Jesus went to the cross for me. He paid the price.

So indeed nothing in life is free, but praise God that Christ willingly paid the price for my justification on the cross and gave it freely to me. It is too good to be true, but it is!