Free Lunches, Free Postage, and Other Free Stuff

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” We’ve probably all heard that at one time or another, even though many of us have been the beneficiaries of a lunch that we didn’t have to pay for. So why do they insist there’s no such thing as a free lunch? 

 

It’s because that lunch does cost somebody. The best scenario is someone covered the cost of the lunch for you. It might be a friend or family member, employer, or even the restaurant itself. It might not have taken anything out of your wallet, but someone had to absorb the cost. Worst case scenario is that even though your lunch might have been free, it created an obligation you might be expected to fulfill sometime in the future. 

It's similar with “free postage” that’s offered when we buy something online. We might not have to pay the additional cost of getting merchandise shipped to us, but somebody has to pay it. Maybe it’s the retailer or the shipping company. The shipping cost might even be a hidden add-on included in the price we paid for the items we wanted. The U.S. Postal Service, which seems to be always losing money, certainly isn’t going to absorb the cost – and even if it did, it still must pay workers who sort, process and then deliver what we buy.

 

We seem to hear a lot about free stuff these days: “free” college educations; “free” health care; “free” unemployment benefits. The costs for these things might not be assessed to us directly, but someone has to pay for them. The “money tree” of legend still hasn’t been discovered, although we might have reason to believe it’s hidden somewhere in Washington, D.C., the way politicians like to throw money around. 

 

This matters because of something available free to each of us, something that’s of far greater value than any of the things cited above. It’s described in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This gift of eternal life truly is free – offered to each of us – but it still comes because of an extremely high cost that has already been paid.

 

This cost, of inestimable value, was paid 2,000 years ago by Jesus on a lonely cross outside of Jerusalem. As someone has said, He paid a price we could not pay to satisfy a debt He did not owe. Or as Romans 5:8 declares, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

 

Question: How many sins had you personally committed when Jesus Christ willingly gave His life on that cross centuries and centuries ago? Not a single one, right? Because you weren’t born yet; not even a tiny glimmer is someone’s eye. And yet Jesus paid it forward, we might say, covering the sin debt you had yet to start accumulating. As it says in the Greek, “tetelestai” – “it is finished.”

 

Why was that even necessary? Why didn’t the Lord just wait for us to earn our way to heaven and eternal life by doing good things? Because He is perfect, holy, all-righteous, and even a slightly imperfect life is totally unacceptable to Him. “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). Countless biblical scholars have studied this passage, and no one has yet to uncover a single exception to this dismal assessment.

 

So as we think about all the free stuff that tantalizes us in this world – “buy this and we’ll throw in that, absolutely free” – we must remember that it’s not really free. Someone is taking responsibility for the cost. And in a far more profound, enduring way, each one of us is offered the greatest free gift of all, the gift of everlasting life. 

 

There’s just one catch: As John 1:12 states,“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, not of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). Just as a free lunch is of no worth if we don’t accept it when it’s offered, the Lord’s gift of eternal life also must be received. Refusing to accept it is a cost no one can afford. 

Mice, Mousetraps and Free Cheese

Who doesn’t like free stuff? Every week I scan through the local grocery store flyers for the “buy one, get one free” deals. If what I’m looking for isn’t among the store’s offers this week, I usually wait until it’s available on the two-for-one sale.

Of course, it’s not really “free.” The store had to pay for the extra item I receive, and its cost is absorbed by profits generated by the regular-priced other items they hope I’ll buy during my grocery store visit.

We’re often told “there’s no such thing as a free lunch,” but during my business career there have been numerous times I received a free lunch. But it wasn’t completely free, because someone else paid for it. It might have been a friend, or my host while I was traveling. A restaurant might have offered free lunches to customers as a promotion, but at minimum, they had to cover the cost of the entrée, side items and my beverage. Free to me, yes, but not completely free.

I try to avoid getting political in my posts, because my mission when I write is solely to exalt my Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, and communicate the practical relevance of the Scriptures for everyday life. But I have to admit to getting annoyed when I hear elected officials debating “free stuff.”

For instance, Social Security and Medicare benefits are often regarded as “entitlements,” when in fact most Social Security beneficiaries and Medicare recipients have had funds deducted from each paycheck for years and years. We’ve even gotten annual statements to report just how much we have paid into those Federally controlled accounts. The benefits we receive aren’t free and never have been. If they’re entitlements, it’s because we’re truly entitled to get back what we’ve paid in.

Yet we still hear about “free” college, “free” healthcare, and lots of other freebies. Payday everyday – and no work on payday. (Okay, I made up that last one, but don’t be surprised if someone proposes it. Maybe during the Presidential election campaign.)

Recently, I came across an anonymous quote that illustrated the “free stuff” myth that so pervades our society today: “Mice die in mousetraps because they don’t understand why the cheese is free. Same applies to socialism.” Chew on that for a few moments – that’s what the mice did.

Lest this be perceived as a political rant, I’d like to shift gears to consider the “free stuff” we’re promised in the Bible. Because the Scriptures do use the term “free” a lot. One of the most foundational passages, Romans 6:23, informs us, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

In another context, we’re also told, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). This freedom is referring to becoming freed from the tyranny of sin, but even in this case, the freedom did not come to us without a price. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). 

Incredibly, it’s easy to take the gift of eternal life for granted, almost as if it’s an entitlement. Doesn’t John 3:16 say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life”? Yes, God loved us – and still does. And He wanted us to experience eternal life – and still does. But it came at a cost: Jesus’ sacrificial, atoning death on the cross. Dare we not underestimate that cost.

The humbling part of this is we couldn’t pay it even if we wanted to. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). In case we missed that, another passage affirms this truth: “…our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purity for himself a people that are his very own…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy” (Titus 2:13,14, 3:5).

So the next time someone offers you something free – a lunch, a vacation trip, a college education, health care…or eternal life – remember: Nothing is free. Someone must cover the cost. It just might not be you or me.