Back to the songs

Song

Compared to What You Paid

GraceGratitudeGuiltFreedom

“Compared to What You Paid” holds our own comfortable faith up against the real cost paid by believers who were flogged, chained, and stoned for their belief — and finds our version cheap by comparison. The chorus keeps returning to a single, uncomfortable measurement: how cheap is a raised eyebrow, a lost follower, or a little social discomfort next to an actual cross? The second verse turns personal, confessing “Sunday grace on a Monday thief” and asking whether grace is grace at all if it costs us nothing. The bridge names Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warning against “cheap grace” directly and asks God to break the comfort that’s substituted for real discipleship. The final chorus and outro land on the ultimate comparison underneath all the others: not what other believers paid, but what Christ Himself paid — a cost no honest accounting can equal, and the only comparison that finally puts our own small offerings in their right place.

"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
1 Corinthians 6:20

A song for the road you're on.

Watch on YouTube

Lyrics

Compared to What You Paid
Dirt Road Gospel Music
DirtRoadGospelMusic.com

[Verse 1]
I read about the ones who bled
Stoned in the street, throwed in with the dead
Flogged in a square, chained in a cell
Counted it joy where I'd count it hell
I got called a name in a comment thread
Somebody rolled their eyes at something I said
That ain't a flogging, that ain't a jail
That's a paper cut next to a nail

[Chorus]
So how cheap is that
Compared to a cross
A look, a raised brow
A little bit of cost
Maybe a buck or two
Maybe a friend walks away
Lord how cheap is that
Compared to what they paid

[Verse 2]
I'm shocked at the shallow of my own belief
How little it's cost me to call myself Yours
Living Sunday grace on a Monday thief
Never once had to open the door
They lost their whole life for the words they said
I won't lose a follower, I won't lose my bed
So what does it cost me, tell me true
Is it grace at all if it don't cost You

[Chorus]
So how cheap is that
Compared to a cross
A look, a raised brow
A little bit of cost
Maybe a buck or two
Maybe a friend walks away
Lord how cheap is that
Compared to what they paid

[Bridge]
BON-hoff-er knew the difference
Between the cheap and the cost
Said grace without the dying
Is grace that's already lost

So I'm asking You to show me
What I've never had to pay
Break me of the comfort
That's kept me safe today

[Final Chorus]
'Cause how cheap is that
Compared to a cross
Just a look, just a whisper
Just a little bit of cost
I've been counting pennies
While they counted it all as gain
Lord how cheap is that
Compared to what they paid

[Outro]
Compared to what You paid