The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer ‑ Costly Grace
By Charles W. Colson
Half a century ago a young Lutheran pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer was involved in a failed plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler‑‑and he was executed by the Nazis for treason.
Astonishingly, not long ago Bonhoeffer's reputation was resurrected when he was officially exonerated by a court in Berlin. Just what did Bonhoeffer do to provoke the ire of the Nazi regime?
In his book The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer paints a vivid picture of what it was like to be true to the Christian faith under a hostile regime. Under persecution, Bonhoeffer discovered that, even though God's grace is freely given, it also extracts a high cost.
It was costly grace that led Bonhoeffer to return to Germany and suffer with his fellow Germans when he could have stayed safely in America.
It was costly grace that led Bonhoeffer to continue teaching and preaching the Word of God even though the Nazis tried to suppress his work. Costly grace led Bonhoeffer to stand against a turncoat church that mixed Nazi doctrine with Christian truth. Along with other faithful believers, Bonhoeffer signed the Barmen Declaration, which boldly declared their independence from both the state and a co‑opted church.
But even in prison, Bonhoeffer's life shone with divine grace. He comforted other prisoners, who looked upon him as their chaplain. He wrote many moving letters that were later collected into a volume called Letters and Papers from Prison‑‑a book I read during my own stay behind bars, in which I found great strength and encouragement.
On the morning of April 9, 1945‑less than a month before Hitler was defeated‑‑Bonhoeffer knelt and prayed, and then followed his captors to the gallows, where he was hanged as a traitor. Now Bonhoeffer is finally receiving the official recognition to match the spiritual veneration he has inspired in so many believers.
The late British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a tribute to Bonhoeffer in his book The Third Testament. Muggeridge, writing about World War II said: "Looking back now across the years . . . what lives on is the memory of a man who died, not on behalf of freedom or democracy or a steadily rising gross national product, nor for any of the twentieth century's counterfeit hopes or desires, but on behalf of a cross on which another man died 2,000 years before.
"As on that previous occasion on Golgotha," Muggeridge goes on, "so amidst the rubble of 'liberated' Europe, the only victor is the man who died. As the only hope for the future lies in his triumph over death. There can never be any other victory or any other hope."
The lesson of Bonhoeffer's life and death is that God's grace is never cheap. It demands from us everything‑‑even our lives. But in return it gives us a new life that transcends even the most oppressive political conditions.
Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship Ministries
"BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" ("BreakPoint") is a daily commentary on news and trends from a Christian perspective. Heard on more than 425 radio stations nationwide, BreakPoint transcripts are also available on the Internet. If you know of others who would enjoy receiving BreakPoint in their E‑mail box each day, tell them they can sign up on our Web site at
Copyright (c) 1999 Prison Fellowship
Ministries. Reprinted with permission.
Psalm 1
Blessed are the man and the woman,
Hass, Robert
Into the garden: a wedding anthology: Poetry and prose on love and marriage
edited by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell 1994
How happy is the man who does not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path of sinners, or join a group of mockers! Instead, his delight is in the LORD's instruction, and he meditates on it day and night. He is like a tree planted beside streams of water that bears its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. The wicked are not like this; instead, they are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not survive the judgment, and sinners will not be in the community of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.
(Psa 1:1-6 HCSB)
Christian Essentials
• The divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture, as originally given, and its supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
• The unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the Godhead.
• The universal sinfulness and guilt of human nature since the (all, rendering man subject to God's wrath and condemnation.
• The conception of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit and his birth of the virgin Mary.
• Redemption from the guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death (as our Representative and Substitute) of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God.
• The bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
• The necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit to make the death of Christ effective to the individual sinner, granting him repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ.
• The indwelling and work of the Holy Spirit in the believer.
• The expectation of the personal return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christian Non-Essentials
At Grace Community Church we recognize that great Christian men and women throughout the Church Age have had differing positions on No-Essential issues of doctrine. Issues not included in the Christian Essentials are still important, but should not be a source of division in Christ's Church. These non-essential issues are rather an opportunity (or God's people to humbly search God's Word for understanding. The Elders of Grace Community Church seek to establish Grace Community as a "safe place" to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ and in his Word. Non-Essential Doctrines (i.e. Spiritual gifts, Millennial Views, Worship Styles, etc... ) provide Christ's Church with opportunities to humbly seek to better understand God's Word, while accepting one another (Romans 14:1-7) from a foundation grounded in the unity of the Christian Essentials - the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our pastors and elders welcome questions and discussion on any point of doctrine at anytime, whether part of Christian Essentials or Non-Essentials.
' Grace Community Church is committed to its relationship with the Evangelical Free Church of America. Please visit their website at www.efca.org or call (800) 745-2202 for details or questions.
A Non‑Theistic Jueo‑Christian Ceremony
A Zen‑Unitarian‑Catholic‑American‑transcendentalist ceremony
The Tao of Marriage
The deepest intimacy with the beloved becomes possible when we have experienced intimacy with the self. Intimacy the the self means awakening to our true nature. Y The willingness to go deeper than love is itself a kind of love, a desire to meet the beloved beyond desire, in the darkness where there is not self, no other. For this meeting, a man and a woman must be whole enough in themselves to step out of themselves, into a place of mutual transformation. They are able to surrender everything they know, everything they love, with the abandon that a Master has at the hour of death. Transformation is a death. It is also a birth, and can be as painful as any physical birth. Painful or ecstatic, it requires a fundamental trust. "into your hand I commit my spirit."
A man and a woman who enter this depth of intimacy find themselves standing in the garden where Adam and Eve stood. All things are possible for them. The ancient Chinese sage Tzu‑ssu said, "for the mature person, infinite vastness of the universe." they have traced their love for each other back to the root of love, the radiant non‑self, the bodhisattva's serene compassion. Like the wedding ring, it has no beginning, no end.
Hass, Robert
Into the garden: a wedding anthology: Poetry and prose on love and marriage
edited by Robert Hass and Stephen Mitchell 1994
"But that the way the sky is." Beezus was trying to be helpful. She felt better, because Ramona had not plunged in and painted a picture full of imagination. "skies should come farther down on the paper."
Beesus and Romona Beverly Cleary
James O. Fraser on Praying for Missionaries
Beyond The Range- by Mrs. Howard Taylor pg 57 & 58 as copied Arlene Eppley
It seems to be a big responsibility to be the only preacher of the Gospel within a radius of about 150 miles. I feel my weakness very much, yet the Lord seems to delight in making His power perfect in weakness, May I ask you then to remember me specially in prayer, asking God to use me to the salvation of many precious souls.
I am feeling more and more that it is, after all, just the prayers of Gods people that call down blessing upon the work, whether they are directly engaged in it or not.
Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God who gives the increase; and this increase can be brought down from heaven by believing prayer, whether offered in China or in the homeland. We are, as it were, God’s agents – used by Him to do His work not ours. We do our part and then can only look to Him, with others, for His blessing.
If this is so, Christians at home can do as much for foreign missions as those actually on the field. Now, I believe it will be only on the last day we know how much has been accomplished in missionary work by the prayers of earnest believers at home. And this, surely, is the heart of the problem. Such work does not consist in curio tables, showing of slides, and the giving of reports. Good as this may be, they are only the fringe and not the root of the matter, solid, lasting missionary work is done on our knees. What I count more than anything else is earnest, believing prayer, and I write to ask you to continue to put up much prayer for me and work here in Tengyueh.
Beyond The Range- by Mrs. Howard Taylor pg 57 & 58 as copied
One of the interesting things I find is, when you sit down and talk to people," Mapps says, "there's more room for consensus."
Mingus Mapps
https://www.wweek.com/news/city/2020/10/07/mingus-mapps-is-running-an-old-fashioned-campaign-in-his-challenge-to-commissioner-chloe-eudaly/
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We don't notice the small stuff and were never prepaired for the Big Stuff
Lets hope bumbling along without a clue is important
According to the ads, fress breath and dry armpits are crucial
What about the stuff in between
That stuff's Boring
