Thoughts for the Day

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Today we remember a man who was a Lutheran priest, a teacher, and a martyr, who died in 1945 aged 39 years old, at the hands of the Nazis in the last days of the Second World War. On this day in 1945 he was hung in Flossenberg Prison apparently on the order of Hitler because of his work in trying to free Jews. Born in Breslau in Germany, he was a theologian who sought to explain the God who suffered with us. His work'The cost of Discipleship' was to become a classic. He worked in universities and parishes in the USA, Germany and England. He was also at the forefront of the ecumenical movement working to make links between different Christian denominations.

The following quote comes from his book. The word 'Grace' means the unconditional love for someone who does not deserve it, in other words God's unconditional love for us:

"Cheap grace is preaching forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession. … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ...."

So 'Costly grace' according to Bonhoeffer is when we follow Christ wherever He leads us, no matter how painful it will be. Indeed costly grace can lead to death, as it did for Bonhoeffer.

Lord God,
may we not take Your love for granted,
by confessing only partial repentance,
and for not being honest with You.
Help us to realise that following You
has serious consequences,
that our path may not be a bed of roses,
and that discipleship can be difficult.
Give us the strength to follow where You lead.
Amen.