Restoring the Image

Bonhoeffer - courage, peace, and discipleship

Several weeks ago I finally finished Eric Metaxas' biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  It took me much longer than it should have, but I can tell you it was an absolutely wonderful book.  If you're not familiar with Bonhoeffer, he was a german theologian, pastor, and disciplemaker who was very prominant during Hitler's rise to power.  He, of course, was against what Hitler was doing to Jews and to germany and eventually even got involved in plots to take out Hitler.  To understand why a theolgian would get involved in that, you have to read the book - it's well worth your time.

Here are just a few quotes from the book - though they may function as teasers that invite you to read the whole thing for yourself, they are also powerful thoughts that challenge and encourage us to reflect on our own lives of faith and discipleship.  Here they are:

"We are saved, not by anything we do, but by grace.  Yet if we have truly understood and believed the gospel, it will change what we do and how we live."

"Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued."

"The good leader serves others and leads others to maturity.  He puts them above himself, as a good parent does a child, wishing to lead that child to someday be a good parent.  Another word for this is discipleship."

"There is no way to peace along the way of safety.  For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe.  Peace is the opposite of security.  To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself.  Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment, wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of Almighty God."

And finally, "Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will."

Maybe one of those thoughts strikes you...maybe you want to read the book.  Either way I'd encourage you to read about the life of someone completely committed to God - it's encourages and inspires us to pursue Him with even more passion and commitment.

 

No time for tact...

I like people who tell it like it is.  That's one of the many reasons I married my wife. (If you know Stephanie, you know it's true.)  Larry Winget is a business writer that doesn't spend any time coddling people, he just calls it like he sees it.  He published a book recently that has a nugget of his wit and wisdom for every day.  So I'm in the bookstore and I turn to the page that is for my birthday (May 31st).  Here's what Larry wrote for that day:

"There is always enough time to do what is important to you.  If you aren’t doing the right thing in you life, it’s because it isn’t important enough to you to do it.  You can fill in the blank on this one.  Reading isn’t important to you.  Personal development isn’t important to you.  Saving isn’t important to you.  Exercise isn’t important to you.  Just know that if you aren’t doing it, whatever it is, it’s because it isn’t important to you."

So true.  If it feels like a kick in the pants, it's supposed to.  That's Larry's style (I also like his haircut!).  Now, from what I can tell, Larry's not a Christ-follower, and I'm not recommending or endorsing this book, but I think what he says here is true.  Apply it to prayer.  Apply it to engaging with the Scriptures.  Apply it to serving or giving.

I'm going to go out on a little bit of a limb here...I think that sometimes in the church we emphasize grace and mercy so much (as well we should, and I'm thankful for it) that some people translate that into and abdication of responsibility for what we should be doing with our lives.

We all get 24 hours.  "There's always enough time to do what is important to you."  So what's important to you?

Sometimes we need a kick in the pants...