Bonhoeffer

I want to take a moment to plug a new book a couple friends of mine have been reading and proclaiming "excellent". It's a new biography of German disciple and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer's writings have always landed near my own heart. Bonhoeffer's greatest legacy is not his writings, but his own life. His life was a gift to the Body of Christ. And, his life continues to challenge and encourage Christians swimming in a sea of spiritual mediocrity. I encourage you to pick up this book.

It would be a missed opportunity not to pepper you with a Bonhoeffer quote at this juncture. Here's some of his thoughts on grace that we find in his classic book The Cost of Discipleship:

"Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. . .Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God".