THE ANONYMOUS DISCIPLE

THOUGHTS The Essence Of Discipleship... "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was willing to risk his life in order to resist Adolf Hitler during World War 2, was hanged for his part in a plot to assassinate Hitler. He is also known for the quote above. Here is the context of his famous quote: "The cross is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering which every man must experience is the call to abandon the attachments of this world. It is that dying of the old man which is the result of his encounter with Christ. As we embark upon discipleship we surrender ourselves to Christ in union with his death—we give over our lives to death. Thus it begins; the cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise god-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. It may be a death like that of the first disciples who had to leave home and work to follow him, or it may be a death like Luther’s, who had to leave the monastery and go out into the world. But it is the same death every time—death in Jesus Christ, the death of the old man at his call. Jesus' summons to the rich young man was calling him to die, because only the man who is dead to his own will can follow Christ. In fact, every command of Jesus is a call to die, with all our affections and lusts. But we do not want to die, and therefore Jesus Christ and his call are necessarily our death as well as our life." (The Cost of Discipleship, p. 99, 1937) On the day Bonhoeffer died, as he was marched naked to the gallows, his last words were... “This is the end, but for me the beginning of life!” Two Men Paul says in Romans 7:19, "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." There are two separate wills in the verse above, "two men", if you will. There is the "I" who desires to do good, and there is the "evil" who desires to not do good. Which one of these two wills makes each of us who we are? Both of them do. In 1st Corinthians 15:45-49 Paul says, "the first man Adam is a living being". He is "from the earth." However, he also "drinks iniquity like water" according to Job, and therefore, cannot be saved or redeemed. This stands in stark contrast to the multitude of false teachers today who tell everybody in their "Six Flags Over Jesus" churches that our "first man" is all good. Paul goes on and says, "The second man is a life-giving spirit" and, "he is from Heaven." In other words, he is eternal. In fact, he is of the Kingdom of God and "cannot sin because he has been born of God". (I John 3:9) So the question is very simple: which "man" is the stronger one in you, the first man, or the second man? If we are truly His, and are daily "abiding in Him", the second man will grow stronger in us each day until, as Paul said, "...Christ is formed in you!" (Galatians 4:19) Oh! To experience the reality of Galatians 4:19! "I (1st man) must decrease and He (2nd man) must increase."(John 3:30) "I (1st man) am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I (2nd man) live; yet not I (1st man), but Christ lives in me (2nd man): and the life which I (2nd man) now live in the flesh I (2nd man) live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me (1st man), and gave himself for me (2nd man)." (Galatians 2:20) "Unless We Become As Little Children..." The following is from "Approved Unto God" by Oswald Chambers and is more applicable today than ever: "To believe in Jesus means much more than the experience of salvation in any form, it entails a mental and moral commitment to our Lord Jesus Christ's view of God and man, of sin and the devil, and of the Scriptures." "How much intellectual impertinence there is today among many Christians relative to the Scriptures, because they forget that to 'believe also' in Jesus means that they are committed beforehand to His attitude to the Bible. He said that He was the context of the Scriptures, '...they are they which testify of me.' We hear much about 'key words' to the Scriptures, but there is only one 'key word' to the Scriptures for a believer, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. All the intellectual arrogance about the Bible is a clear proof of disbelief in Jesus. How many Sunday School teachers today believe as Jesus believed in the Old Testament? How many have succumbed to the insolence of intellectual partisanship about the Person of our Lord and His limitations, and say airily, 'Of course, there is no such thing as demon possession or hell, and no such being as the devil'? To 'believe also' in Jesus means that we submit our intelligence to Him as He submitted His intelligence to His Father. This does not mean that we do not exercise our reason, but it does mean that we exercise it in submission to Reason Incarnate. Beware of interpreters of the Scriptures who take any other context than our Lord Jesus Christ." It Is Time To Seek The Lord! "Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." (Hosea 10:12) Why Are We Saved? Which of the following is true? We are saved: 1) To go to Heaven. God loves us so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for us in order that we might be able to go to Heaven and live in a mansion when we die. 2) That the life of the Son of God might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. That Christ might be magnified in our bodies, whether by life or by death. That we might become one with Jesus as He is one with His Father in order that the world may know and believe that God sent His Son into the world because He loves them just as He loves His son. (See 2nd Corinthians 4:10-11; Philippians 1:20 & John 17:21-23) In case you are wondering, #1 above is not true. There is no Scriptural basis whatsoever for believing this. Whereas, #2 above is true. This is why we are saved. As the Apostle Paul said..., "My little children in whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you." (Galatians 4:19) "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Ephesians 4:13) "...may grow up into Him in all things..." (Ephesians 4:15) "For whom He did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son..." (Romans 8:29) As God's people we are supposed to bear a strong family likeness or resemblance to His Son Jesus Christ. #1 above will not get us there, but #2 will. Next Page

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