Tag Archives: Christianity

Are You Frustrated with Your Local Church?

Posted on by under Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.

This applies in a special way to the complaints often heard from pastors and zealous members about their congregations. A pastor should never complain about his congregation, certainly never to other people, but also not to God. A congregation has not been entrusted to him in order that he should become its accuser before God and men.

. . . Let [the pastor or zealous member] nevertheless guard against ever becoming an accuser of the congregation before God. Let him rather accuse himself for his unbelief. Let him pray God for an understanding of his own failure and his particular sin, and pray that he may not wrong his brethren. Let him, in the consciousness of his own guilt, make intercession for his brethren. Let him do what he is committed to do, and thank God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, trans. John W. Doberstein, (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 29.

HT: desiringgod.com

You Are the Body of Christ and Individually Members of It

Posted on by under Sam Storms

It has never been nor will it ever be God’s design for you to pursue your relationship with Him independently of other believers in the body of Christ. It is not only unbiblical to think otherwise; it is arrogant. A finger is effective only if it is united to a hand. An eye can see only if embedded in a head. A foot is good for movement only if attached to a leg. “For the body does not consist of one member but many. . . . [Therefore] you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12.14, 27).

Sam Storms, The Hope of Glory (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2007), 148.

Christian Faith Is Not Just Mental Agreement

Posted on by under John A. Hutton

Once for all we must be on our guard against the sin of supposing that what God desires of any of us is the mere intellectual acceptance of any statement with regard to Him. Christian belief is only to a limited extent a thing of the head. Yes; let even the pledged servants of Jesus Christ beware of the awful snare of setting mere correctness of theological opinion above personal holiness.

John A. Hutton, The Authority and Person of Our Lord

Want to Know Christ More? Speak More of Christ.

Posted on by under J. H. Jowett

We shall never really know Christ as He is to be known until we begin to tell what we already know. In the realm of religion we never really know until we testify. Until the disciple becomes an apostle he is never an advanced disciple. Every teacher knows this; his knowledge grows while he imparts it. I heard a friend of Watts say in the Tate Gallery some time ago, when he was taking a little party through the famous chamber: “Every time I try to explain these pictures I see more to explain!” In the act of stating a principle the light brightens for ourselves. . . . While we declare the grace of redemption, grace more abounds toward us. While we testify as to the way of peace we are led into the more secret place. If we would be fine learners we must be ready teachers. Are you saying you cannot be? Is there anything you know about the Lord? Tell the little you know, and the little will grow. Have you no sick neighbor, no care-worn friend, no depressed fellow-pilgrim who is fainting on life’s way? Teach him the little you know. You will be perfectly amazed at the effect upon your friend, but still more wonderful will be the effect upon yourself. As you go home from that house, the truth which hitherto shone like a candle, will burn like a star. “He that doeth the least of these commandments, and shall teach men so, the same shall be called great.” These are some of the secrets of successful discipleship in the school of Christ.

original emphasis, J. H. Jowett, from sermon titled “The School of Christ” in “The Silver Lining”

The Great Cost of Answered Prayer

Posted on by under Marcus Dods

Commenting on “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” in the Lord’s Prayer:

Wrapt up in its encouragement there is a check to conscience. We are not to be allowed to present the petition at all, unless it be from the deepest sense of our need, and of the greatness of the gift we seek; a sense which is in reality equivalent to true repentance, and which brings with it, as its uniform and necessary fruit, love to our neighbor. And every one who knows how apt we are to become either hypocrites or careless formalists in prayer, will recognize the suitableness of such a check, and will appreciate the propriety of its being appended to this petition rather than any other. For this, more than any other, has been a lip-deep petition, and has been shamefully abused by self-satisfied or careless petitioners, by ourselves when we ask forgiveness, as we often ask it, without any considerate remembrance of the cost of it, thinking it the easiest thing for God to give, and forgetting that this has been prepared for us at a far greater expense, at a more personal expense, than anything else we can implore. It has been the endeavor of many teachers to persuade us, and yet we need to be reminded, that a word could create and beautify a world, and “an act of will bestow it upon us,” but it has cost God the humiliation and suffering of His well-beloved Son to grant the boon which now we ask. And therefore we are here suddenly startled out of all dreamy and indifferent prayer, and are aroused by being brought face to face with our own real desires and our own real life; we are reminded that our prayer had far better be unsaid, if it is not of a piece with our state of heart; that we cannot pray as one person and live as another; that we do not look as earnestly as we ought for the remission of our debts, (and therefore need not expect it,) unless we be doing what we can to avoid contracting new ones; that, in short, we have no encouragement whatever to present this petition, unless conscience assures us that the love of God, on which we hope, has entered our souls and changed them, and has become the principle and law of our lives.

Emphasis mine: Marcus Dods, The Prayer That Teaches to Pray