No Free Lunch 7-20-08
There is no accomplishment without cost. In biology, this means that organisms must struggle in order to advance and grow. For example: without straining against a resisting force, your muscles would never have developed any strength – this is why people wanting stronger muscles tend to pick up weights. This principle of development through adversity can be seen in how people build immunities to disease; the Spanish who came to the new world did not know that they carried the deadly small pox virus with them because they had built up the immunities that the natives did not have, resulting in a massive epidemic.
In economics, this principle can be seen in the example of healthcare: people want to control the cost of healthcare (they want others to pay for it) and they want to control access (they want to go whenever they want). But what many people seem unable or unwilling to understand is that whoever pays the cost determines the result, so that if the government pays the bill, then the government gets to choose the amount and timing of the healthcare decisions. On the reverse side, if the people want to decide for themselves where, when, why, and to whom they go for medical care, then they need to pay the bill. If someone else pays for your healthcare, then you will pay by surrendering choice and options.
In physics, the first law of thermodynamics (the Law of Conservation of Energy) means that you cannot get more energy out of a system than you put in, and in fact you will get less. For example: if you throw a ball, not all of the energy that you put into throwing that ball will go towards the distance travelled by the ball. Some of the energy will go into the ball’s flight; some will go into the friction of the ball and the air; some of the energy will go into moving the arm that throws the ball.
This principle applies most importantly to the Christian. The first example of development through adversity is seen in how we are shaped and molded through God’s discipline and guidance (Hebrews 12:7-11). It is through this process of being refined in the fires of life that we become purified.
The second example of wanting to control the cost and the benefit is seen in the Christian as a desire to eliminate the need for changing self and to expand salvation to be all-inclusive (as in, everybody is in). In John chapter three, Jesus teaches Nicodemus that only through being born again of the water and the Spirit can a man enter the kingdom of God. Not only must he believe and be baptized, but he must also change his life to be based in truth and light.
The third example, the conservation of energy, is seen in the Christian as the futility of trying to build a life in Christ by human efforts alone. We cannot live on our own! We need the presence and the power of Jesus in our lives and our works. As Jesus said in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter thirteen, the seed that falls on the good soil yields thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times what was sown. But, as Paul points out in 1 Corinthians chapter three, it is only God who causes things to grow. Our effort alone will not cause any grow; our efforts by themselves appear weak and ineffective. But combined with God’s infinite power they are highly effective.
There is no way to get something for nothing. Too many people view salvation that way – as a handout. Consequently we have many among us who do not value the sacrifice and terrible cost that Jesus bore for our sakes. Let’s not fall into the trap of confusing “freely given” with “free”. There is no free lunch – Jesus already paid the price, so we had better ante up the only thing we have left, which is … us!
-Charles Peterson