When Free Isn't Free

What's the earliest exit you've ever made from a poker tournament?  We may have set a new standard today - by exiting before the tournament even began.

But we should start at the beginning.  For weeks Arrowhead Poker's website offered this event:

Sunday @ 2pm 

August 31st

$500 True Free Roll
Chair Rental $0-0**

You can qualify for this tournament by simply buying into any daily tournament. 

We played in a $20 Friday tournament a couple of weeks ago, so we presumed our spot was secure.  But no - our name didn't come up on today's qualifying list.

"Did you do the ten-dollar buy-in?" the manager asked us -- as in paying $10 extra up-front for bonus chips.  No, we didn't.  And that left an organizer with a look of frustration on his face.

"That ten-dollar buy-in pays for this tournament," the organizer explained.

We invite you to look up and down the website and tell us: where does it define "buying into" as paying the extra $10?  We don't think it does.  In most tournaments we've entered, the "buy in" is the main entry fee - in our case the $20.

But we decided against making an argument about it.  We shook our head, bit our lip a bit, walked across the parking lot to a convenience store for a "consolation prize" soda and drove home.

How many things in life claim to be free -- only to have hidden strings attached?  Yet Jesus Christ makes this offer:

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. - John 8:36

What does Jesus (the Son of God) mean by this?  He explains moments earlier:

Jesus replied. "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.  Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever." - John 8:34-35

Jesus wants to set you free from sin, to become a son of God.... not simply for today, but forever.  How?

And from Jesus Christ.... him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.... - Revelation 1:5

As orators like to say on holiday weekends such as this one: The price of freedom isn't free.  In this case, the blood Jesus shed when He sacrificed His life on our behalf frees us from sin.  We don't have to pay for that, because Jesus already did.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. - Galatians 5:1

So how will you respond to that truly free gift?  We've been studying a religious magazine article on how to respond.  The author seemingly doesn't want to use the phrase "go all in," but he could - and it seems we should.