During certain prayers and small group discussions that I have had with others Christians, I notice this growing trend that people's conversations talk increasingly about their failures as a Christian and how bad they feel towards God about how they fall short.

As moving and spiritually sounding this seems, something about this bugs me. I think that in our encouragement of openness and sharing, we sometimes are quick to gloss over the bad behavior just because we were supposedly open and honest enough to come fourth with it.

I think as we create this environment of people continuously sharing those same issues and same temptations that they struggle with, I feel like it creates an excuse for a lack of trying. As if it's okay to consistently and persistently be awful and fall short of the standard expected of a Christian. Now, I'm not talking about not having grace and love, but I think often times we forget the discipline that should come with grace and love. What God declared to be wrong and bad hundreds of years ago still carry forth today.

I guess it kind of hit me how low we may have dropped our standards when I read what Bonhoeffer wrote regarding The Cost of Discipleship (1995). I think he put it best when talking about "cheap grace".

Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession…. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. 

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and self all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. 

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. 

One of my favourite songs by Christian rapper Lecrae is the song "Boasting" from his 2010 album Rehab. In it, there's a line that never fails to hit me. He says around the middle of the second verse:

I rejected his love, grace, kindness, and mercy.
Dying of thirst, yet, willing to die thirsty.

I love that line because I think it so poignantly speaks on the internal dilemma, the struggle of the unwillingness to repent.

Lately, I have been feeling the ramifications of this, and what it feels like to be spiritually parched.

I don't know what it is about our sickening human nature that makes us voluntarily (or involuntarily) reject the one thing that's good for us.

I don’t know why or even how, but I have been admittedly feeling a growing distance between me and God these past couple months.

I realised this when there was a lack of the fruit of the Spirit and a growing attitude shift towards the negative or cynical thoughts regarding people, situations or myself.

Somehow, without even realising it, I ended up in a place where I struggled to fuel myself with this life-giving water.

But He has been patient with me, this stubborn child of his, and never stopped trying to get my attention as I try to refocus.

His patience and mercy are bountiful and more than I can ever ask for.

Thank God that He doesn’t give up on his children.

I have to admit that when someone flat-out rejects the gospel after being presented numerous times with overwhelming evidence of its validity if they still honestly believe that it is false or if they are unwilling to admit to its truth.