Dietrich Bonhoeffer - The Cost of Discipleship (1937)

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Anything I cannot thank God for for the sake of Christ, I may not thank God for at all; to do so would be sin.... We cannot rightly acknowledge the gifts of God unless we acknowledge the Mediator for whose sake alone they are given to us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
But discipleship never consists in this or that specific action: it is always a decision, either for or against Jesus Christ...Christ speaks to us exactly as he spoke to them. It was not as though they first recognized him as the Christ and then received his command. They believed his word and command and recognized him as the Christ—in that order.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility… As a Christian I am called to treat my enemy as a brother and to meet hostility with love. My behavior is thus determined not by the way others treat me, but by the treatment I receive from Jesus.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The world exercises dominion by force and Christ and Christians conquer by service.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther's perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Only the man who follows the command of Jesus single-mindedly, and unresistingly lets his yoke rest upon him, finds his burden easy, and under its gentle pressure receives the power to persevere in the right way. The command of Jesus is hard, unutterably hard, for those who try to resist it. But for those who willingly submit, the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Struggling against the legalism of simple obedience, we end by setting up the most dangerous law of all, the law of the world and the law of grace. In our effort to combat legalism we land ourselves in the worst kind of legalism. The only way of overcoming this legalism is by real obedience to Christ when he calls us to follow him; for in Jesus the law is at once fulfilled and cancelled.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer