a call to justice and costly grace.

Tonight, I was reminded of the injustice in our world. Tonight, I find myself a little frustrated, a little unsatisfied. But rather than take the time I do not have to write out how I feel, I'll leave you with several quotes...

"I hate all your show and pretense - the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living."

-Amos 5:21-24

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn..."

-Isaiah 58:6-8

"When you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!"

-Matthew 25:40

"We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters...Dear children, let us not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions."

-1 John 3:16, 18

"The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing...Cheap grace means the justification of the sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before.

"Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has...It is the call of Jesus Christ at which any disciple leaves his nets and follows him...Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ."

-The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

My challenge to you is this:

Don't reduce your faith to a schedule of religious activities through which you feel justified to live unbothered by the brokenness, injustice, and suffering in our world. Let the love and grace you've freely received cost you something.