Bonhoeffer has so much in his writings, my mind is still thinking about his first chapter on cheap grace and costly grace. He ruined me. After I read that chapter, I applied that chapter to every Christian thing I encountered. I became overly aware of every time I presented the gospel and how I presented it. Because the truth is, we of course want people to accept Christ and be saved by Him, but out of our own desires and sympathies for their soul we make the gospel something easy and pleasing. We make it cheap. Anyone can get it. Which is true. However, if I sharing only a portion of the gospel - the portion that is popular and easy to share - just to win a great number of souls to "heaven" then I'm not really sharing the true gospel. I'm sharing Chloe's heart. The outcome won't be true followers of the true Christ, but followers of Chloe's heart, which is an extremely scary thought. It reminds me of this devotion book I'm going through right now (My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers-read it). Chambers takes several days to emphasize the Christian's responsibility to be the Bridegroom's friend, all based on the passage where John explains that he rejoices to hear the Bridegroom's voice and ends with the famous verse -"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30 Christians fail to be the Bridegroom's friend when they stand in the Bridegroom's way and become necessities to a soul because they preach a false message or give commands out of what could be a genuine care for the soul. However, because the Christian is constantly giving direction to the soul, discipling it in a way that isn't God's order, the soul is following and worshipping them, and in actuality doesn't even know who God is. So essentially we do the same thing when we preach the cheap "grace." I can most easily see this cheap grace when in my Jihad and Crusade class Pope's and other church leaders proclaimed that God would forgive all of men's sins if they would go and fight "for Him" in pursuit of the holy city Jerusalem. But now I'm like afraid that every Christian song like David Crowder's "Oh Happiness" is a song of cheap grace. Or in his song How He Loves when he sings the line "if grace is an ocean then i'm sinking." Which these things are true, God's grace does abound. But I don't know, I guess I'm over thinking everything, which goes against Bonhoeffer anyways, since faith transcends intellect.
p.s. commented on Amanda's
First of all, I absolutely LOVE the song that your title comes from. Second, I agree with you. And I think my blog post will compliment yours nicely. We can't pick and choose how we're different from others, or how we're going to follow Christ based on what others say or think about us. When we choose to follow Christ, we have to choose to give Him everything with no regard to the cost!
ReplyDeleteYou are so right! I love how you called it Chloe's heart, just like I could call it's Anna's heart. That's so true about how cheap gar can be applied to the gospel. I still have questions for Bonhoeffer though. What is not cheap grace? What does conversion look like for Bonhoeffer? Hmmm questions.
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