The Extraordinariness of the Christian Life

 

What typifies an ordinary day for you?  Is it meals, work, school, dishes or sleep?  By comparing our lists we would find a lot the same I would guess.  And by expanding that list to include our week ends we might include “church” as well.  Isn’t it interesting how we measure our lives, listing the routines and tasks that make up so much of our time.  There is much that makes life  ordinary, but I hope we also believe there is much more that makes it extraordinary.

 

The term, “extraordinary” is used by an author named Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his 1937 book Discipleship.  When the book was translated into English the title changed to The Cost of Discipleship.  In his book he writes about the “extraordinariness of the Christian Life.”  He writes powerfully about the meaning of discipleship, suffering in life, belief, obedience and the value of grace.  His writing reflects the seriousness of his pre-WWII Germany and the importance of living a true faith.  And as far back in history as that seems, Bonhoeffer has a message for us today.  Read the following from Jim Wallis writing in Sojourners Magazine.

 

Then I read Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship, which relied heavily on the beatitudes and the idea that our treatment of the oppressed was a test of faith. To believe in Jesus meant to follow him, Bonhoeffer said. Believing in Jesus was not enough; we were called to obey his words, to live by what Jesus said, to show our allegiance to the kingdom of God which had broken into the world in Christ. What a radical idea! And such an obvious one, yet almost entirely missed by the American churches of the 20th century. Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned of the “cheap grace” that promotes belief without obedience, and I knew exactly what that meant. He spoke of “costly discipleship” and asked, how could the grace that came at the tremendous cost of the cross require so little of us?  From the Article, “When I First Met Bonhoeffer.”  By Jim Wallis.  Sojourner Magazine.

 

Sometimes it isn’t until we break with the ordinariness of life, the routine, that we can ask ourselves the deeper questions.  God bless you with the luxury of time this summer to ask the deeper questions of life.  I hope you can appreciate even more the costliness of Grace that is extended to you through the savior Jesus.

 

In Peace,

 

Pastor Ron