I was watching “The Andy Griffith Show” while eating breakfast this morning. A commercial came on and I began to wonder why I put up with them.
The first reason is that commercials are intended to entice me to buy something. For this privilege, the sponsor pays money that helps fund the channel and its programming. Then, of course, I pay for the service so I can watch that channel. Without me paying for the service, the sponsor wouldn’t pay for commercials and the channel might cease to exist for the TV show.
The second reason I put up with commercials is that I am programmed to allow them. By that, I mean in the generation I grew up in, we didn’t have a choice. We watched whatever was on the three channels we could get or we did something else. Even though I own the entire series of “The Andy Griffith Show,” I’m still more comfortable watching it on local TV.
From my perspective, the TV show comes on, and I can watch it for free. That is not correct because, as I just explained, there really is a price to pay (being interrupted by commercials). In fact, when you think about any transaction, the provider wants compensation before or shortly after the transaction. Imagine if I could watch a TV show with the understanding that you would watch the commercial another day?
All the things I think are free really have a cost. The price may be apparent, like when I go to the grocery store to buy milk, or hidden, like when I drive on the roads. There is no free lunch. Go ahead, I dare you to think of one.
Well, I’m wrong. Your salvation is something provided completely free to you just by asking.
“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” - Romans 3:21-26 ESV
You might argue that God demands a lot from us. To worship Him, to change ourselves, to focus on Him, to love everyone. Yes, all these aspects of who you are change. But the real answer is that God doesn’t demand these changes from you; He lets you grow in your faith walk with Him, and want these changes.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” - Romans 8:1-11
Maybe this is the best freebie of them all.
