Priceless

I am the door [said Jesus]: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.

John 10:9

When God said, “Come ye, buy . . . without money and without price” (Isaiah 55:1), He was saying “Salvation is free!”

God puts no price tag on the Gift of gifts—it is free! Preachers are not salesmen, for they have nothing to sell. They are the bearers of Good News—the good tidings that “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3), and that the “grace of God . . . hath appeared to all men” (Titus 2:11). Money can’t buy it. Man’s righteousness can’t earn it. Social prestige can’t help us acquire it. Morality can’t purchase it. It is as Isaiah quotes: “Without money and without price.”

God does not bargain with us. We cannot barter with Him. We must do business with Him on His own terms. He holds in His omnipotent hand the priceless, precious, eternal gift of salvation, and He bids us to take it without money and without price. The best things in life are free, are they not? The air we breathe is not sold by the cubic foot. The water which flows crystal clear from the mountain stream is free for the taking. Love is free; faith is free; hope is free.

We can’t reject God’s grace on the ground that it is too cheap, for the most precious things in life come to us without money and without price. Only the cheap, tawdry things have a price tag upon them. Salvation is free—but it is not cheap!

Our Father and our God, thank You for being the Giver of all good and perfect gifts. I know the greatest Gift of all cost You everything, and I honor and worship You for the sacrifice that You and Your Son made for me. Thank You for Your unspeakable Gift. In His name. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).