[Dropcap]Chris Anderson, editor and chief of Wired Magazine and author of The Long Tail, recently published a book entitled Free: The Future of a Radical Price. In this book, Anderson explores the market’s tendency towards a free price. Everyone everywhere is offering things free.[/dropcap]

But is it really free?  Can you truly have a free price? No strings attached?

Short Answer: No. Long Answer: Yes

In physics we say for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,

which in economics we call a cost or we say, “there is no free lunch.”

In LDS theology, we say that we don’t believe in ex nihilo creation.

Companies are finding innovative ways to offer more value and pass off the costs of production (to say, for example, advertisers or corporate sponsors), allowing companies or individuals to offer a lower or free price for their goods or services. Even Chris Anderson took part, practicing what he preached by offering for a limited time his book for free (the unabridged audio book is still available for free).

This idea lends us a couple of gospel insights:

Principle #1

When our sins our forgiven by Christ, they do not disappear. No, every sin, even in the least degree, was paid for with His precious blood. When crimson turns to wool and scarlet to snow, it is done at a great price:

” . . . how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. 

For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;” (D&C 19:15-16).

Looking back, from time to time I have fallen into a sort of light-mindedness about the atonement. Do we sometimes forget the cost because we don’t have to pay the full weight of it? Next time you find yourself humming through the sacrament hymn, take a moment to consider what the words of that hymn are trying to teach about the great cost Christ paid for you and me.

Principle #2

Satan will do all that he can to make sin appear free: no strings attached. It is a subtle sleight of hand, shifting the up front costs of sin away, making it more readily available than ever.

What did it used to take to consume pornography? It was hard to find and expensive to come by in whatever form. Now it is virtually free to consume. You can find it in the music on the radio and the shows (and commercials) on television. Consider what it takes to find it on the internet: all it costs (up front) is a few clicks. It is cunningly convenient and so ready to access.

But there is no free lunch: not from the adversary. No pass from the costs that sin extract from us. There are terrible consequences that result from sin that none of us can ignore. It is a debt that quickly compiles interest with no escaping the collection agent. If we cannot break the cycle, we find ourselves reposes-ed with little agency and spiritually bankrupt.

Conclusion: “Long Answer: Yes.”

And yet, when we feel sin closing in around us, the Lord reaches out and says, “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price,” (2 Nephi 26:25).

But like Enos, we ask, “Lord, how is it done?”

“And he said unto [Enos]:  Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole,” (Enos 1:7-8).

In a world of scarcity and no free lunches, there is one way, one truth, one life that if followed, leads to a world free of sin, sorrow and suffering. What a miracle the love of God is that despite so great a cost, Christ paid it and offers us the benefits so freely. Those who argue that there are strings attached don’t realize that those are lifelines cast down from a loving Father in Heaven to lift us up to him.

I close in the words of the hymn,

I think of his hands pierced and bleeding to pay the debt!
Such mercy, such love and devotion can I forget?
No, no, I will praise and adore at the mercy-seat,
Until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet.

How wonderful, indeed.

Thanks for reading.

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