Price vs cost

I was at the grocery store lately and was asked by the checkout lady, whom I hardly know, if she could get a price break on a certain professional procedure as I was now working part time at the local provider of such services.  I wanted to ask if I could get an 80% discount on my bananas since I had a passing acquaintance with her.  I get annoyed when people ask me things like this, and I was not quite sure why until I sat down and thought it out.  I was feeling that in asking for a discount, they felt that my time and skills were of little or no value and thus it was outrageous for me to charge a reasonable market price for said service and I was indignant that my years of schooling, hard earned experience, and insane student debt counted for nothing but rather they are the ones who get to be upset when I decline to offer free services based on the most meager acquaintance.  It is a strange world we live in!  But more importantly, this is how so many of us treat our own faith in Christ.  We want to get by 'on the cheap,' we want 'cheap grace' rather than redemption, we want Christianity on our terms rather than His.

Our salvation cost Him everything and we assume it should cost us nothing.  We want to live as we want to live, not as He expects us to.  We treat it as some eternal life insurance policy we can ignore until the moment we need it when rather it should be a radical change in life and behavior.  We are called daily to 'take up our cross' which literally means to take up an implement of death and carry it towards the site of our own execution!  We must be ready to lay down our lives and priorities in His service, in whatever guise that may take at the moment.  This is not an easy, gentle faith to be ignored save at the last end of need.  It demands 'my life, my soul, my all,' and if you are not prepared to lay it all down, why bother pretending?  The Book of Revelation warns believers about being 'lukewarm,' rather let us be either hot or cold!  All or nothing!  It is the ultimate insult to approach the throne of grace with a list of prerequisites before one is willing to kneel before it.  Christ held nothing back.  He asks the same of each of us.