Defining Suffering and the Cross

The cross is not adversity, nor the harshness of fate, but suffering coming solely from our commitment to Jesus Christ. The suffering of the cross is not fortuitous, but necessary. The cross is not the suffering tied to natural existence, but the suffering tied to being Christians. The cross is never simply a matter of suffering, but a matter of suffering and rejection, and even , strictly speaking, rejection for the sake of Jesus Christ, not for the sake of some other arbitrary behavior or confession. A form of Christian life that no longer took discipleship seriously, that made of the gospel merely a belief in cheap consolation, and for the rest did not really distinguish between natural existence and Christian existence--such a form of life had to understand the cross merely as ones daily trouble, as the distress and anxiety of our natural life. Here is is forgotten that the cross always simultaneously means rejection, and the disgrace of suffering is part of the cross. Being expelled, despised, abandoned by people in ones suffering, as we have find in the unending lament of the psalmists, is an essential feature of suffering of the cross, yet one no longer comprehensible to a form of Christian life unable to distinguish between bourgeois (middle class) and Christian existence. The cross means suffering with Christ, it means the suffering of Christ. Only that particular commitment to Christ occurring in discipleship stands seriously under the cross.

...the first suffering of Christ we must experience is the call sundering our ties to this world. This is the death of the old human being in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Whoever enters discipleship enters Jesus death, and puts his or her life into death; this has been so from the beginning. The cross is not the horrible end of a pious, happy life, but stands rather at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Every call of Christ leads to death. Whether like the first disciples we leave home and occupation in order to follow him, or whether with Luther we leave the monastery to enter a secular profession, in either case, the one death awaits a, namely death in Jesus Christ, the dying away of our old form of human being in Jesus call. ....because only as one who has died to his own will can he follow Jesus, because Jesus commandment always means that we must die with all our wishes and all our desires and because we cannot want our an death--for all these reasons, Jesus Christ in his word must be our death and our life. Christ's call, or baptism, means placing the Christian into daily struggle against sin and the devil. Hence every new day, with its temptations through flesh and the world, brings new sufferings of Jesus Christ upon his disciples. The wounds that are stuck here, and the scars every Christian receives from this struggle, are living signs of the community of the cross with Jesus.

-Bonhoeffer 

(Readings Matt 8:21-38 will help with understanding this passage)

Book Recommendation Propelled by Conviction

I love reading, as many of you who have read this blog in the past probably already know, and I do a good deal of it; when I am not teaching, parenting, cooking, driving, sleeping, or other things that being a mom-at-home entails I read! I read all sorts of genre's from fiction to mystery or biography and theology. I try hard to be varied in my choices of reading as so many good stories are available! But very few books hit me in the gut, wrench my conscience and motivate me to complain a whole lot less--aka being more holy!

Yup, I said it; I am a complainer! I look at my life and at the disdain I am forced to face from the choices I have made (i.e. Not having a career, having five children, supporting my husband, living from one day to the next, being a christian, etc). I honestly think about (probably at least 10 times a day) "Why me?" Haha, yeah it's not very funny, but it's true! I look at truths of my life and how it has been a struggle to hear and how other's have noted "Ever since you wanted to be a missionary," that my life has taken on an unalterable pallor. But this is good news, I can honestly say I have LOST MY LIFE! I have! My life as I knew it, lived for my goals and my expectations is long gone. I don't live even for the revival of that life, because it's ideas are so foreign to me now, but I still wish at times my loss wasn't so apparent and that's why I complain. "Does it have to be hard, God? Can't it be a little less hard?"

The Mission of Jesus?

"Suffering was not just a consequence of the Master's obedience and mission. It was the central strategy of his mission. It was the ground of his accomplishment. Jesus calls us to join him on the Calvary road, to take up our cross, and to hate our lives in this world, and fall into the ground like a seed and die, that others might live. We are not above our master. To be sure, our suffering does not atone for anyone's sins, but it is a deeper way of doing missions that we often realize." --John Piper

But I love myself better than God or you?

"Let us for a moment imagine what would have happened on the Galilean hillside, when our Lord fed the five thousand, if the Apostles had acted as some act now. The twelve would be going backwards, helping the first rank over and over again, and leaving the back rows unsupplied. Let us suppose one of them, say Andrew, venturing to say to his brother Simon Peter, 'Ought we all to be feeding the front row? Ought we not to divide, and some of us go to the back rows?' Then suppose Peter replying 'Oh no; don't you see these front people are so hungry? They have not had half enough yet; besides, they are nearest to us, so we are more responsible for them.' Then, if Andrew resumes his appeal, suppose Peter going on to say, 'Very well; you are quite right. You go and feed all those back rows; but I can't spare anyone else, I and the other ten of us have more than we can do here.' Once more, suppose Andrew persuades Philip to go with him; then, perhaps, Matthew will cry out and say, 'Why, they're all going to those farther rows! Is no one to be left to these needy people in front?'

"Let me ask the members of Congress, Do you recognise these sentences at all?"
                                                      --Eugene Stock, at Shewsbury Church Congress

......The women looked very reproachful. Then one of them said, looking up at me, "You say this is very important. If it is so very important, why did you not come before? You say you will come back again if you can, but how can we be sure that nothing will happen to stop you? We, are some of us, very old; we may die before you come back. This going away is not good." And again and again she repeated, "If it is so very important, why did you not come before?"

Don't think that the question meant more than it did. It was only a human expression of wonder; it was not a real desire after God. But the force of the question was stronger far than the poor old questioner knew; it appealed to our very hearts.

The people saw we were greatly moved, and they pressed closer round us to comfort us, and one dear old grandmother put her arms around me, and strocked my face with her wrinkled old hand and said, "Don't be troubled; we will worship your God. We will worship Him just as we worship our own. Now, will you go away glad?"

The dear old woman was really in earnest, she wanted so much to comfort us. But her voice seemed to mingle with the voices from the homeland; and another -- we heard another -- the Voice I had heard on the precipice edge -- voice of our brothers', our sisters' blood calling unto God from the ground.

Friends, are these women real to you? .....Can you looks at it [pictures of the indian people/women] and say, "Yes, I am no my way to the Light, and you are on your way to the Dark. At least, this is what I profess to believe. And I am Sorry for you, but this is all I can do for you; I can be very sorry for you. I know that this will not show you the way from the Dark, where you are, to the Light, where I am. To show you the way I must go to you, or, perhaps, send you one whom I want for myself, or do without omething I wish to have; and this, of course is impossible. It might be done if I loved God enough -- but I love myself better than God or you."

You would not say such at thing, I know, but "Whoso hath this world good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"

--Amy Carmichael, Things As They Are: Mission Work in Southern India.

Run A What?

Let me show you something from the book of Hebrews that was pointed out to me in passing by a friend and mentor. His statement was short and to the point but not developed. I wanted to see if his suggestion held up upon a closer examination. So I went digging in the gold mine that is the word of God and uncovered a beautiful nugget of truth.

While My Husband was Reading My Favorite book....

He came across this stellar passage....

Suffering has to be endured in order that it may pass away. Either the world must bear the whole burden and collapse beneath it, or it must fall on Christ to be overcome in him. He therefore suffers vicariously for the world. His is the only suffering which has redemptive efficacy. But the Church knows that the world is still seeking for someone to bear its sufferings, as so as it follows Christ, suffering becomes the church's lot too and bearing it, it is borne up by Christ. As it follows him beneath the cross, the church stands before God as the representative of the world.

We need your Help amongst the Christians

"Have we told you how much we need your help for the work among the heathen; but often we feel we need it almost as much for the work among the Christians. Over and over again it is told, but still it is hardly understood, that the Christians need to be converted; that the vast majority are not converted; that statistics may mislead, and do not stand for Eternity work; that many a pastor, catechist, teacher, has a name to live, but it dead; that the Church is very dead as a whole--thank God for every exception. We do not say this thoughtlessly; the words are a grief to write. We humble ourselves that it is so, and take to ourselves the blame. It is true that the corpse of the dead church is dressed, just as it is at home, only here it is even more dressed; and because the spirit of the land is intensely religious, its grave-clothes are vestements. But dressed death is still death."

--Amy Carmichael

My Favorite Bible Verse

God forgive us! God Arouse! Shame us out of our callousness!

The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered round me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:

That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only cloud shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step...it trod into air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!

A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell

We have been married for 9 years today and this is the best reminder I can think of to post as a celebration not just of our marriage, but also of the institution of marriage and the grace of God.

I am so thankful for the work and faith of this man, Bonhoeffer. His book Discipleship is probably my most favorite aside from the bible, ever.

A Wedding Sermon From A Prison Cell by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Old Dudes have some Pretty Cool Words to share....

Christ went more willingly to the cross than we do to the throne of grace (Thomas Watson).

There are no crown-wearers in heaven who were not first cross bearers here below. (CH Spurgeon )

They are following Christ, and they know where they are going. And even in the dark river, in the valley of the shadow of death--they feel a confidence that their Shepherd will be with them, and that His rod and His staff will comfort them. They would all tell you that they are poor wandering sheep, ashamed of the little fruit they bear. But still, as weak as they are, they are determined to follow on to the end, and to say, "None but Christ--in life and in death, in time and in eternity!" (J.C. Ryle)

We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer. --Bonhoeffer

Watch This!!!!

Obscene?

pdphoto.org

The most obscene symbol in human history is the Cross; yet in its ugliness it remains the most eloquent testimony to human dignity. —R.C. Sproul



No matter how beautiful we try to make it, the ugliness cannot be denied...the beauty lies in the God-man who took on this grotesque burden!

And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me......

The following are references from the NT pertaining to a subject that Will and I have been contemplating for about 2 years, the role and definition of persecution or struggle in the Christian life.

On Crosses and Slaves

I have often been amazed (though not surprised) by the manner in which the truths of God get subverted. You might think I mean the ways people creatively explain away certain verses that make them uncomfortable or ignore a clear, contextual meaning of a verse in order to say something radically different than the precious truth God originally intended. Though these subversions are rampant, there are some just as sinister and even more calculated rejections of truth. Unfortuantely, they are widely overlooked and accepted by even strong evangelicals. So much so that we need to begin to wake up and recover some important realities that have become numb to us for decades. Let me illustrate what I mean.

Why Would God Start His Bible Like That?

Have you ever contemplated the first book God ever wrote? I don't mean the bible as  whole, but which of the many books within  the larger bible came first? Well, I am certain many of you are answering Job. A lot of people who have been in church or around church or Judiaism at all know this simple fact. But have you ever asked yourself Why? Why would God start His story to people with a message Like JOB? I mean really, thats not the way to get converts! Admitting that You allow Satan to punish followers to test their faith?! It seems sadly cruel to start out the message of the God's story with God admitting to allowing the persecution of followers. So why would God do that? Maybe to set the stage for What following God/Christ would really entail?

Command Most Often Given??

"I heard recently of a small boy asked to write down in order the worst things that humans could do, and wrote: Number 1 : Murder; Number 2: running down the school corridor. We all get things out of proportion. But this conception of God is in fact a lie. The ressurection of Jesus proves that it's a lie. Do you know what the most frequent command in the Bible turns out to be? What instruction, what order, is given, again and again,

Fiery Trials

Goodbye King Self, Hello King Jesus

I am a product of a broken home. My parents divorced when I was ten and afterwards my sisters and I were thrown into a very unreal word of my father's other life. Women and sex, cursing and neglect became realities for us. We saw first hand the person who we knew as Dad  had become something ugly, unloving, obsessed with women and pleasure and totally unrecognizable as the father we had grown up knowing. So when my mother met and got engaged to her high school sweetheart, I was ecstatic! I would have probably moved anywhere, just to forget that my father didn't love me, that women objectified themselves for acceptance and that my life was a total lie. I packed and moved as happily as any person I could have imagined! I was willing to make this new shot at life work and that meant I was able to start over.