No Free Lunch

 

I read a devotion this week that built off the premise that there is no such thing as a "free lunch". I liked it so much I thought I would shape it a little more Flat Tire style and share my takeaways with you. The idea of the old cliché "There's no such thing as a free lunch" centers around the fact that regardless of whether your meal today was free to you, somebody or in many cases lots of somebodies paid for it. I mean we can all agree that meals aren't just falling down out of the sky, right? "Buy one get one free", "Free to the next ten callers", or "Take one they're free while they last" are all slogans we have heard over the years and oh boy when we hear the word "free" we flock to it! I guess the question is, is a free lunch actually free?

Well if you adhere to the cliché, the quick answer is an emphatic "No". The support for that summation is readily available, which makes the case for "No such thing as a free lunch" that much more plausible. Think about it, if someone buys your lunch today it was free to you, but only because your friend purchased it. Let's advance that a bit and put it in the context of programs that provide "free" or reduced priced meals to those that will benefit from the assistance, are those meals free? Obviously, none of us believe that those meals are bona-fide free, yet to those in need receiving the meal it is without an upfront cost to the recipient. So maybe it is free? If I receive it and I don't have to pay for it, would that not be the definition of free?  On the surface that is true, but the underlying theme of "no free lunch" is that somewhere, someone paid the price due for that meal.  The farmer paid for that meal with his hands and the land he purchased that produced the crops. The company that manufactured the processed products in that meal paid their workers to produce the food. The restaurant or person cooking the meal had to pay for the ingredients that make the meal, and then if by chance you received that meal for free someone paid the price for everything that went into that meal from the farm to the table. It definitely wasn't free.

Hopefully everyone knows where I'm headed with this one. My salvation is free. The mercy and grace that has been given to me that allowed me to be forgiven for my sins is free. God gave it to me even when I did not deserve it. That is a gift, much like a free lunch wouldn't you agree? So, when we are talking about a free lunch and the understanding that it really can't be free, how does that fit into the notion that we receive our redemption from the sinful life we have led free? 

We can work and serve, serve and give, give and pray, yet none of that in itself will buy our salvation. In Ephesians 2:8-9 Paul explains that, "... by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." So, the work we do is a by-product of the faith we possess. What then is our faith supposed to be? Our faith is the understanding that God, the all-knowing, all seeing God of all creation, sent His Son to live with us and then die for us before ascending back to His Father so that we could be forgiven of our sins. If, and only if we believe. That is where our faith equals the free lunch we've been discussing. 

There is no such thing as a free lunch, I believe we can all agree on that. Someone has to pay the price at some point in the process. For us our salvation is free. We can ask for forgiveness and we are then forgiven, but if we are forgiven we also understand that the gift cost Jesus his death on the cross. That certainly equals a price paid so that we can be forgiven. The free side of this equation is that we don't have to have a list of things we have done to pay for redemption and salvation. God offers it to us for free and then we serve Him by serving others, thus our works basically are an outcome of our faith not a price to pay to receive God's free lunch!

Believe, submit, and then accept. The lunch is free, you just have to come get it! My prayer is that each person, each family, and all those that you come in contact this holiday season will accept God's offer and the free gift of salvation that Jesus paid for you and for me!

Merry Christmas, 

Coach Carter