Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a brilliant young German pastor and theologian. In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer warned against what he called cheap grace. He wrote that cheap grace is “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” He did not just write it. He resisted, and he was arrested and imprisoned. He was moved from Tegel prison to Buchenwald and then to Flossenburg. On April 9, 1945, just one month before Germany surrendered, he was hanged with six other resisters. Grace is free, but it was never cheap. It cost Jesus His life, and following Him still calls for our whole lives.
