day no. 15,438: grace does not take the place of following Jesus

"At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess, 'I now see that we can nothing know.' That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, 'it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence.' As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception. For acquired knowledge cannot be divorced from the existence in which it is acquired. The only man who has the right to say that he is justified by grace alone is the man who has left all to follow Christ. Such a man knows that the call to discipleship is a gift of grace, and that the call is inseparable from the grace. But those who try to use this grace as a dispensation from following Christ are simply deceiving themselves." -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

"Grace through faith is the only thing that saves" is a good summation at which to arrive, but it is a dangerous place from which to begin. The soul that has arrived at the conclusion that God's grace is the only thing that can save them has actually been humbled to the point of hungering and thirsting for righteousness. The soul that begins with the maxim that grace saves may live in such a way as to never realize how desperately grace is actually required. The soul that presupposes grace may never understand how gracious it is since it never aspires much for righteousness. Grace is not a freedom to sin. It is the freedom of a fine paid after being arrested.

“No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good. A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is. After all, you find out the strength of the German army by fighting against it, not by giving in. You find out the strength of a wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down. A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness — they have lived a sheltered life by always giving in. We never find out the strength of the evil impulse inside us until we try to fight it." -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Grace does not take the place of actually following Jesus. Grace is the gift that inspires the pursuit. It is acknowledged as the reward of those who are trying to pursue it, but falling disappointingly short. Grace is not grace if it is merely personal preference. Grace is knowing that you need it because you don't have it.