There are a handful of issues that I believe create the greatest barrier to belief in Christ in the United States.  One of those is brought out in the words of Romans 4.

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation.  However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.                                                                                                                                       Romans 4:4-5

We naturally distrusts that which is free.  

Many years ago, I was visiting a jewelry store in Colorado.  I was wearing a t-shirt that I still own.  The young man behind the counter made a startling and searching statement that caught me off guard and to this day it stands as one of my greatest regrets and failures.  

                   This is the front.

                      And this is the back.

He said, “How is Jesus simple?  I don’t see that at all.”  I can’t remember what I told him, but it wasn’t anywhere near the truth his heart was longing to hear.

One day my husband came home and I had put a word on the wall outside the glass shower in our bathroom.

It had actually been a demonstration by a friend of mine who was selling those wall cling things about how easy they were to apply.  I found it fitting for other reasons.

Life is really much more simple than we make it out to be.  The idea that anything could be free or easy makes it seem cheap and not worth having.  Think about that.  “If it isn’t worth working for, it isn’t worth having.”  “If it comes cheap, it probably is.”  These are the mantras that Americans grow up being taught. And so when grace and freedom and life and fullness are offered at the bargain basement price of faith alone, our minds just can’t comprehend that level of simplicity.  

Once we have relinquished ourselves to believing that righteousness might be free–and only then because we know it wasn’t free to Him who offers it–we still have the obstacle of all the promises that stretch so far beyond merely entrance into eternity with Him.  “Yes, He may have offered me admission, but that just gets me in the door.  If I want an audience with Him, fullness in Him, a mansion in that eternity, surely that will cost me.”  

Life really is more simple than we allow ourselves to believe.  

Usefulness, purposefulness, fullness, they are all more simple than our minds can fathom.

It is as simple as this: If today I make myself wholly available to Him, He can and will make something beautiful of it.  

I don’t have to understand how or why.  I don’t need to know what it’s going to look like in advance.  I don’t need the answer to every question or a detailed itinerary.  I simply need to trust that He has all of that and then some.  It isn’t what we’re taught to believe, but it is what is ultimately true. It cannot be earned or bought.  It cannot be deciphered or created, it cannot be forced or manipulated.  It can only be freely received as the gift one cannot otherwise possess. It is that simple.  

Salvation, fullness, purpose, life.  While costly to Him, only come free to us.