Trust & Obey

“If we refuse to take up our cross and submit to suffering and rejection at the hands of men, we forfeit our fellowship with Christ and have ceased to follow him” are the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer from his book The Cost of Discipleship (43). Nothing has shown me I do not have it together like this famous classic. Page after page revealed to me that I am not up to standard, and I need to rely on Christ way more than I previously thought. Bonhoeffer throws every punch to show his readers that if we are “kind of” doing the work, that means we are not doing the work. He writes, “For faith is only real when there is obedience, never without it, and faith only becomes faith in the act of obedience” (20). You can’t have faith if you are not walking in obedience, and let’s be honest, many of us struggle to walk in obedience. It’s painful and, at times, feels humiliating. However, if we aren’t ready for the cost, we will not be able to experience fellowship with Christ.

Bonhoeffer’s whole thesis is: “when Christ calls a man he bids him come and die” (42). Basically, you are in or you are out. This is so against our current culture that hearing this preached blatantly was jarring for me. We exist in a relativistic culture that has a “What’s good for you may not be good for me, and that’s good!” mentality. So, as Christians, we can get lulled into complacency, and become confused about being a good disciple. Christ is calling us to fanaticism, not a Bible book club. We are called to be the salt of the earth, to keep the world from going bad and give it flavor. Bonhoeffer points out: “The call of Jesus means that either we are the salt of the earth, or else we are annihilated; either we follow the call or are crushed beneath it” (70). We need to maintain our saltiness so that we can salt others (and to some degree ourselves!). This is not meant to be a scare tactic by Bonhoeffer, but a sobering up for the Church. It causes us all to take a deep look at ourselves, and evaluate how well we are following Christ.

In our faith, it is necessary to get a sobering up. Jesus said a lot of sobering things to the Pharisees when he was preaching, and the point was to convict them and potentially even save them, like Nicodemus. I think that modern Christians have a lot more in common with the Pharisees of Jesus’ day than we would like to admit. How many of us are wearing our cross necklaces, Jesus shirts, and reading Bible studies, and yet when the rubber meets the road and we need to do the right thing, we shrink back? Do we participate in office gossip, or curse when we are angry? We can talk faith well, but our obedience is sloppy at best. Then would that make us “white washed tombs”, too (Matthew 23:27)? We dress up nice for church on Sunday, and look the part, yet we do not have a real relationship with Jesus. Could we also then be like cups that are clean on the outside, but inside are filled with “greed and self-indulgence” (Matthew 23:25)? I know I am. I can play the part beautifully, but when things get hard, I can be quick to take the easy route.

So, after reading The Cost of Discipleship, I thought, I am so below the bar as a disciple. I don’t know how I am ever going to get to where I need to be. Well, thank the Lord for my next read: Gently and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund. Ortlund uses Puritan writers and his own insights as a pastor to highlight Christ’s heart and what makes him tick. How can we love Christ if we do not know him? Ortlund aims to reveal who Christ is at his core and show us how much he loves us, despite our sinfulness.

While this could be a touchy feely book, Ortlund does not shy away from tough truths; under the umbrella of Christ’s gentleness, the truth is sweetened. An example of this is in the very beginning of his book, where he explains what the yoke looks like for a savior who is gentle and lowly:

For it is a yoke of kindness. Who could resist this? It’s like telling a drowning man he must put on the burden of a life preserver only to hear him shout back, sputtering, “No way! Not me! This is hard enough, drowning here in these stormy waters. The last thing I need is the added burdens of a life preserver around my body!” That’s what we are like, confessing Christ with our lips but generally avoiding deep fellowship with him, out of a muted understanding of his heart. […] We are buoyed along in life by his endless gentleness and supremely accessible lowliness. He doesn’t simply meet us in our place of need; he lives in our place of need. (23)

I have always thought of the yoke as a bad thing, but when we see that it is meant to keep us up, not down, we are so much quicker to put it on. Why are we slow to put it on in the first place? Because we do not know the person whose yoke we are placing on our shoulders. By reading scripture and books like Ortlund’s, we can gain a better picture of our savior and have a desire to obey the one who lives to assist us. Who wouldn’t want to lay everything down for someone who has already laid down his life for everyone’s?

I say all of this not to put down Bonhoeffer’s book. The Cost of Discipleship is a phenomenal work that deserves to be under the banner of “Christian classics” because of Bonhoeffer’s rich theology and vibrant conviction on full display. His conviction was not just talk, either. Bonhoeffer publicly opposed Hitler, was a part of the resistance, and died by hanging in April, 1945. Bonhoeffer is someone we should all look up to as juggernaut of obedience. However, when we get all caught up in how we need to be better, we can easily start beating ourselves up and saying we don’t deserve anything (which while true can become destructive if dwelt upon). The beauty of reading different books by different authors from different times is that we experience the depth and breadth of theology. Feeling pretty good about myself, reading Cost of Discipleship showed me that I have a long ways to go in being obedient. I started feeling overwhelmed by the weight of my inadequacy when I started Gentle and Lowly. Now, I have a more balanced view of my state: I do need to trust and obey, but when I make mistakes I don’t need to be ashamed. Instead, I can bring them to Christ who is my high priest that understands and wants to sanctify me every day. Praise the Lord that He has blessed us with so many brilliant writers to learn and grow from, and that we get to experience conviction and contrition that is immediately met with the compassion of our savior.