July 12: What is Cheap Grace?

by T. C.
Apple Creek SDA Church 
Canada 

It’s a grace that says that God doesn’t care how you live, what you watch, how you conduct your business, or what you do in secret as long as you pray the sinner’s prayer or walk the aisle when the preacher makes the altar call. It’s the belief that Jesus is a Saviour from the penalty of sin, but not the power of it. He’s the Redeemer of your soul, but not the Ruler of your life.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve have just violated God‘s explicit prohibition. They sinned and the immediate result was a terrifying internal void, a deep shame and a realization of their nakedness. So, what did they do? They went to work. They sewed fig leaves together to make aprons for themselves.

Many are still doing this today. Some of us try to cover our exposure through religious performance. We stitch together our church attendance, our self discipline, our giving and our moral superiority to cover the parts of ourselves we are terrified for God to see. We numb the void with money and materialism. We try to stitch together an identity of career success. We try to quiet the anxiety by turning to secret addictions, jumping from one relationship to the next, pornography. We hold onto our resentment and pride out of an instinct of self protection.

Whether you’re using religion to cover your pride or using sin to numb your emptiness, you’re wearing fig leaves. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seemeth right to a man but the end thereof are the ways of death.”

Self-made coverings are temporary. You cannot make your own righteousness, and God will not accept a cheap substitute. In Matthew 22 the guests were required to wear a wedding garment. The garment required for the wedding feast is not our moral effort nor is it a blind eye to our sins. It is Christ’s own character, His perfect obedience given to you and lived out in you.

When Jesus gives you His robe of righteousness, it is not a cloak you throw over a rebellious unchanged heart. You do not wear Christ’s righteousness as a disguise for your secret sins.

1 John 3:6 is uncompromising. “Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not.” When you put on Christ’s robe, it changes you. It heals the internal void, so you no longer have to chase the things that are destroying you. It shifts your natural rhythms. It changes how you speak to your family when you’re tired. It changes how you handle your private temptations. It destroys the double standard where we demand grace from God, but refuse to offer it to the people who hurt us. I would rather have a real connection with a holy God than a lifetime of superficial religion that leaves my heart unchanged. What matters most to me is not protecting our preferences or comfortable sins, but learning how to truly yield to Christ.

We cannot delay this. We are being fitted up for heaven, and the character we develop here is the only thing that we will take with us. Romans 13:24 commands us, “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the list thereof.” There is not a future preparation.

3 Corinthians 6:2 says “Behold, now is the accepted time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.” The wedding is coming. The bride groom is at the door. Are you exhausted from trying to sew together a covering of your own religious achievements? Or are you deceiving yourself thinking you can sit at the King’s table while holding onto the very sins that nailed His Son to the cross?

True repentance is dropping the fig leaves. It’s letting go of self-righteousness and secret sins. Are you still wearing fig leaves or are you clothed in Christ? Receive the gift of Christ’s righteousness. Let it change you. Put it on today.