"If our Christianity has ceased to be serious about discipleship, if we have watered down the gospel into emotional uplift which makes no costly demands and which fails to distinguish between natural and Christian existence, then we c annot help regarding the cross as an ordinary everyday calamity, as one of the trials and tribulations of life. We have then forgotten that the cross means rejection and shame as well as suffering.... But this notion has ceased to be intelligible to a Christianity which can no longer see any difference between an ordinary human life and a life committed to Christ."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "The Cost of Discipleship"
I'm afraid for many people the Gospel is simply emotional uplift and encouragement. And then where is the cross, besides natural tragedies and diseases that occur? What do I suffer, solely because I follow Jesus? Anything? And if I do, do I quickly draw back, willing to be ashamed of Him in this world?
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