Is it hard to be a Christian? Or is it relatively easy? What is demanded of us to actually be a servant of Jesus the Christ? I suppose it depends on your theological perspective. If we are talking about forgiveness of sins, then salvation is by grace through faith. There is not a thing you can do to rescue yourself from the consequences of your sins.

On the other hand, there are those who practice a kind of sound-bite theology and they say that salvation is by Christ plus nothing. Their detractors, also practicing sound-bite theology, accuse them of cheap grace. Other sound bites include, Faith alone, only believe, saved by grace rewarded by works.

I think the problem may lie in the perception of religion as a kind of fire escape. The whole world is going to hell, and my primary interest is in not going there. Once the fires of hell are avoided, there doesn’t seem to be very much left to do. Christianity being that easy, one wonders why there are any non-Christians left. It may be because some people have read the New Testament and found Jesus’ theology in this area to be a bit more complicated than the sound bites they have been hearing. Let’s examine a story Jesus told in Luke, chapter 14.