Let's Abandon "Sham Christianity": Bonhoeffer and Chambers

From the Bonhoeffer biography by Metaxas, quoting Bonhoeffer

Note:  If you have not read this book you should.  Discussing it with a pastor friend of mine today he called the book prophetic for our times.  I agree.

"But if God determines where he is to be found, then it will be in a place which is not immediately pleasing to my nature and which is not at all congenial to me.  This place is the Cross of Christ.  And whoever would find him must go to the foot of the Cross, as the Sermon on the Mount commands.  This is not according to our nature at all, it is entirely contrary to it.  But this is the message of the Bible, not only in the New but also in the Old Testament . . ."

Comment:  Living out the cross of Jesus is unavoidable if we would wish to count ourselves as true Christians, real followers of the Lord.  Yet it seems to be this cross that much of western Christendom is seeking to avoid.  Try to live the sermon on the mount, try to relinquish all your rights, try to live like Jesus lived.  What might you find?  Folks will try to talk you out of it.  You will find that many are not up for this sort of Christianity, preferring rather the false kind that is wed to western materialism, that insists on being comfortable, one that has me standing up for my own rights--all with that independent spirit that says, "I am a Christian, yet I own myself.  I will do what I want and call it following Jesus."  It's high time we abandoned this bunk and got serious about following Jesus as He laid it out.  Or else let's stop calling ourselves His disciples.  It's time to count the cost and decide once for all if we will own ourselves or be owned and ruled by Him--which of course means doing His will at all costs--and it will be costly in terms of suffering and rejection.

Bonhoeffer and Chambers would have perhaps gotten along well in their no-nonsense approach to real discipleship.  Consider what Chambers says regarding following Jesus.

1.  "We put sensitive loyalty to relatives in place of loyalty to Jesus Christ and Jesus has to take the last place. In a conflict of loyalty, obey Jesus Christ at all costs."

2.  "Our Lord never puts personal holiness to the fore when He calls a disciple; He puts absolute annihilation of my right to myself and identification with Himself."

3.  "If you are hard and vindictive, insistent on your own way, certain that the other person is more likely to be in the wrong than you are, it is an indication that there are whole tracts of your nature that have never been transformed by His gaze."

4.  "I must reduce myself until I am a mere conscious man, I must fundamentally renounce possessions of all kinds, not to save my soul--but in order to follow Jesus."

5.  "There is no question of your rights.  The stamp of the saint is that he can waive his own rights and obey the Lord Jesus."