When Things Get Real - Purity
836
Purity 836 09/14/2022 Purity 836 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo a rainbow over the Cumberland River on
a sunny day comes to us from a friend who visited Cumberland Falls State Resort
Park yesterday, sharing the fact that the water fall there is also the only
waterfall in the entire Western Hemisphere that produces a “moonbow”. Apparently during a full moon accompanied by
a clear night sky, an arch of white light is produced at the base of the falls
and continues downstream!
Well it’s Wednesday again and I thought that this “hump”
of rainbow over the Cumberland River could visually represent our arrival at
the midpoint of our work week. I don’t know about you but the last two days
seemed to last forever. So I am celebrating the fact that it is “hump day” and I am also celebrating another successful
meeting of the Freedom in Christ course men’s group that I facilitate because
just like we know that a you don’t see a rainbow or a moonbow every day, when
you lead a group where the participants are open, vulnerable, and supportive
you know you have found something special.
When Christian small groups meet sometimes, because
they are a Christian gathering, people will be so positive and encouraging, you
will wonder about the genuineness of what people say and are trying to
convey. Quite frankly when people meet
and quote Bible verses and speak about how thankful and blessed they are you
have to wonder if you entered a different country.
Are we in Christ-landia, where no one has any
problems and everyone speaks Christianese?
I remember one time years ago, going to a graduation
party of my stepdaughter that was hosted by her grandparents that were born
again Christians. At the time I went to
a denominational church but was far from “born again”. We had arrived early
while everything was still being set up and I had thanked my step daughter’s
grandparents for throwing her a party.
They seemed nice enough to me. What do you expect from a greeting to the
husband of your son’s ex, who you weren’t crazy about? They were gracious, humble, and nice.
But then the guests arrived, and my stepdaughter’s
grandfather literally put on his “happy face” and buoyantly greeted the new
arrivals with the zeal of a game show host on ecstasy. He was syrupy sweet and
enthusiastic. The transformation was so stark that he seemed like a complete
and utter phony. And this no comment on
his faith, I think the grandmother was the “believer” in the family, but I will never forget how quickly he
shifted from “normal” to “the host”. “Hey
guys!”
Likewise in church or small groups, you can get a
lot of “Amens” and “I’m blessed” and on occasion you will see smile “run away
from someone’s face” and quickly return the moment they realize they are in a
Christian setting and they let their “happy face” mask slip for a minute. Or you can have those exchanges were
everything is “fine” or “great” and you could spend years in church with people
and never really know what is going on in their lives. We can just know one
another as that “nice guy” or “friendly lady” at church that we say hello
to.
That’s why I love facilitating the Freedom in Christ
course because I encourage people to be truthful, open, vulnerable, and transparent
with one another and when that happens the participants in the group realize
that they can take their masks off.
Last night, some participants shared that they are
truly struggling, that they are searching for meaning and purpose, that they
get their sense of value from the things they do, or they have a problem with believing
what the word of God says about who they are in Christ. Last night, things got real.
And when things “got real” something wonderful
happened, the men in the group started supporting one another by admitting they
had similar problems or they offered advice about what the Lord showed them to
resolve them. Guided by the Holy Spirit,
the group took on a life of its own. The group became a community.
When that happened, I asked the participants to
recognize it for what it was.
“This is discipleship. Christian men trying to apply
the teachings of Jesus to their lives and supporting one another in their walk
of faith. This is Christianity.
This is only the second meeting and I pointed out
that the course is progressive. Each lesson builds upon the previous one and I
can see that the Holy Spirit is already working to guide these men into a
deeper relationship with God, to connect the mind and the heart, and to help
them to experience or deepen their freedom in Christ.
I was clear that while I facilitate the group I am
not “the discipler”, The Holy Spirit is and I encouraged the men to seek His
wisdom, to listen for His voice, and to follow His lead.
God is alive and well - over, above, and on the
earth. He lives inside everyone who has
made Christ their Lord and Savior in the person of the Holy Spirit and He invites
each one of us, as His disciples to “come and see” all that He has for us.
So keep walking and talking with God. Because He is real,
you can take the “happy face” mask off and be real with Him and if you trust
Him with your life He really will show the way to go.
So answer His call, follow His lead, and discover the
person He created you to be.
Well I spent some time before my Bible study this morning to send an email to encourage a brother in Christ, so my time is limited and we will skip the verse of the day for today but hope to share one from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men” again tomorrow.
______________________________________________________________________
As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I
always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to
assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s
“Discipleship”, also known as “The Cost of Discipleship”
As always, I share this information for educational
purposes and encourage all to purchase Bonhoeffer’s books for your own
private study and to support his work. This resource is available on
many websites for less than $20.00.
PART ONE - Chapter
One: Costly Grace,
continued
Like ravens we have
gathered around the carcass of cheap grace. From it we have imbibed the poison
which has killed the following of Jesus among us. The doctrine of pure grace
experienced an unprecedented deification. The pure doctrine of grace became its
own God, grace itself. Luther’s teachings are quoted everywhere, but twisted
from their truth into self-delusion. They say if only our church is in
possession of a doctrine of justification, then it is surely a justified
church! They say Luther’s true legacy should be recognizable in making grace as
cheap as possible. Being Lutheran should mean that discipleship is left to the legalists,
the Reformed, or the enthusiasts, all for the sake of grace. They say that the
world is justified and Christians in discipleship are made out to be heretics.
A people became Christian, became Lutheran, but at the cost of discipleship, at
an all-too-cheap price. Cheap grace had won.
But do we also know
that this cheap grace has been utterly unmerciful against us? Is the price that
we are paying today with the collapse of the organized churches anything else
but an inevitable consequence of grace acquired too cheaply? We gave away
preaching and sacraments cheaply; we performed baptisms and confirmations; we
absolved an entire people, unquestioned and unconditionally; out of human love
we handed over what was holy to the scornful and unbelievers. We poured out
rivers of grace without end, but the call to rigorously follow Christ was
seldom heard. What happened to the insights of the ancient church, which in the
baptismal teaching watched so carefully over the boundary between the church
and the world, over costly grace? What happened to Luther’s warnings against a
proclamation of the gospel which made people secure in their godless lives?
When was the world ever Christianized more dreadfully and wickedly than here?
What do the three thousand Saxons whose bodies Charlemagne killed compare with
the millions of souls being killed today? The biblical wisdom that the sins of
the fathers are visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation
has become true in us.[38] Cheap grace was very unmerciful to our
Protestant church.
Cheap grace surely
has also been unmerciful with most of us personally. It did not open the way to
Christ for us, but rather closed it. It did not call us into discipleship, but
hardened us in disobedience. Moreover, was it not unmerciful and cruel when we
were accosted by the message of cheap grace just where we had once heard the
call to follow Jesus as Christ’s call of grace, where we perhaps had once dared
to take the first steps of discipleship in the discipline of obedience to the
commandments? Could we hear this message in any other way than that it tried to
block our way with the call to a highly worldly sobriety which suffocated our
joy in discipleship by pointing out that it was all merely the path we chose
ourselves, that it was an exertion of strength, effort, and discipline which
was unnecessary, even very dangerous? For, after all, everything was already
prepared and fulfilled by grace! The glowing wick was mercilessly extinguished.
It was unmerciful to speak to such people since they, confused by such a cheap
offer, were forced to leave the path to which Christ called them clutching
instead at cheap grace. Cheap grace would permanently prevent them, from
recognizing costly grace. It could not happen any other way but that possessing
cheap grace would mislead weaklings to suddenly feel strong, yet in reality,
they had lost their power for obedience and discipleship. The word of cheap
grace has ruined more Christians than any commandment about works.
In everything that follows,
we want to speak up on behalf of those who are tempted to despair, for whom the
word of grace has become frightfully empty. For integrity’s sake someone has to
speak up for those among us who confess that cheap grace has made them give up
following Christ, and that ceasing to follow Christ has made them lose the
knowledge of costly grace. Because we cannot deny that we no longer stand in
true discipleship to Christ, while being members of a true-believing church
with a pure doctrine of grace, but no longer members of a church which follows
Christ, we therefore simply have to try to understand grace and discipleship
again in correct relationship to each other. We can no longer avoid this. Our
church’s predicament is proving more and more clearly to be a question of how
we are to live as Christians today.
Blessed are they who
already stand at the end of the path on which we wish to embark and perceive
with amazement what really seems inconceivable: that grace is costly, precisely
because it is pure grace, because it is God’s grace in Jesus Christ. Blessed
are they who by simply following Jesus Christ are overcome by this grace, so
that with humble spirit they may praise the grace of Christ which alone is
effective. Blessed are they who, in the knowledge of such grace, can live in
the world without losing themselves in it. In following Christ their heavenly
home has become so certain that they are truly free for life in this world.
Blessed are they for whom following Jesus Christ means nothing other than living
from grace and for whom grace means following Christ. Blessed are they who in
this sense have become Christians, for whom the word of grace has been
merciful.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage
Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the
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Encouragement
for the Path of Christian Discipleship
[1]
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship,
ed. Martin Kuske et al., trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, vol. 4,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 53–57.
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