The Cost of Discipleship

Hi friends and loved ones, this is a little poem I just wrote, sort of a
condensed version of the larger poem that follows which is inspired
by my study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, one of my heroes of The Faith.
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Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.

ONLY YOU

Take me,
Break me;
Hold me,
Mold me.
Lift me, Carry me; Stay with me,
Strengthen me. Cover me,
Counsel me; Comfort me,
Convince me.
Create
in me a
pure heart,
So that I Will See Only You.

JEFFPOLLOCK
April 21, 2009
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THE COST

Call me, Claim me, Choose me, Crush me,
Shake me, Break me, Hold me, Remold me,
Shape me in Your light so I will love Your truth.
Keep me in Your perfect sight as I take aim on You.

Change me, Challenge me, Cradle me, Cover me,
Blind me in Your light so eye can't find my way;
Lead me, Free me, Watch over me, Use me,
Pour Your Spirit out to encourage my faith.

Comfort me, Counsel me, Carry me, Control me,
Warn me of every pit into which I'd surely fall;
Walk with me, Talk with me, Teach me to see,
Open my desire to want to be where You are.

Cut me, Clean me, Close me, Consume me,
Come live in me; Create in me a newborn heart;
Sing with me, Cry with me, Dance with me, Jesus!
Make me holy, make me righteous, make me perfect.

Capture me, Conquer me, Create in me hope, a Friend;
That in Christ even now I may live as a citizen of Heaven.

J. E. POLLOCK
APRIL 14, 2009

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 sur-render 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. -- The Cost of Discipleship, 99 Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Subject: BreakPoint: 'The Cost of Discipleship', April 14, 2009
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'The Cost of Discipleship' The Forgotten Price

In this month’s Great Books series, Dr. Ken Boa turns his attention to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. The book’s greatness lies not only in the truths expressed, but also in the fact that the author lived those truths in his own life so powerfully. In 1939, just two years after Bonhoeffer wrote The Cost of Discipleship, American friends arranged his passage from Germany to the United States. While others busily planned a speaking tour for Bonhoeffer, he grew increasingly unsettled. He wrote a letter to Reinhold Neibuhr who had sponsored his trip explaining that l eaving Germany had been a mistake. He knew that Christians in Germany would have to choose between desiring their nation’s defeat to preserve Christian civilization or desiring their nation’s victory and thereby destroying their civilization. “I know which of these alternatives I must choose,” wrote Bonhoeffer, “but I cannot make that choice in security.” Bonhoeffer then returned to Germany knowing that following Jesus would have a tremendous cost, but also knowing that whatever that cost was it was worth it to remain near to his Lord. Imprisoned for two years for his part in the German resistance movement, just three weeks before the liberation of Berlin, Bonhoeffer was executed. It’s a story I’ve told in my newest book, The Faith. It is against this backdrop that we read The Cost of Discipleship, perhaps Bonhoeffer’s greatest work and one of my all-time favorite books. As Dr. Ken Boa says in the Great Books Audio series, “Today we define discipleship at best as impartation of a certain . . . knowledge rather than life-changing approach to come and follow Jesus.” Bonhoeffer begins the work by showing exactly how much we’ve reduced Christian discipleship by contrasting the notions of cheap and costly grace. Cheap grace he wrote, “is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. .. . .” In short, no desire to change. In contrast, costly grace is a call to follow Jesus. “It is costly,” writes Bonhoeffer, “because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.” Bonhoeffer was concerned that with the Christianization of the Western world had come a cheapening of grace, denying the very essence of Christianity. To take the name “Christian” and yet cling to what he called “bourgeois secular existence” disturbed him. And we saw the results clearly in the tragedy of Christians being silent in the face of the Holocaust. My concern today is that we learn this lesson and not become comfortable with cheap grace here in our own land. We need to re-read this classic because somehow we’ve forgotten how radical it is to follow the call of Jesus. We’ve forgotten that the disciples left behind the security of their nets and boats, for the gracious uncertainty of a life of faith. And we’ve forgotten that following Christ will lead us down a road likewise marked with suffering. As Bonhoeffer reminded us, “Jesus says that every Christian has his own cross waiting for him, a cross destined and appointed by God.” For us, it may not mean martyrdom as it did for Bonhoeffer, but it will mean abandoning the attachments of this world for fellowship with Christ. That’s an understanding of discipleship we desperately need today.


--Posted By JEFF to WONDERFUL LORD JESUS