We are 17 days into our prayer effort (HSPT) for the church and today I encourage you to pray that the church (you and me) would stay focused on Christ and His gospel. It is so easy to get caught up in things that are not central to the gospel and lose our first love.
This happened in the German church in the 1930’s when Hitler was rising to power. Allow me to give you another quote from Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas that vividly portrays this happening.
“In coarse, crude language, Krause demanded that the German church must once and for all divest itself of every hint of Jewishness. The Old Testament would be first, ‘with its Jewish money morality and its tales of cattle merchants and pimps!’ The stenographical record notes that ‘sustained applause’ ensued. The New Testament must be revised, too, and must present a Jesus ‘corresponding entirely with the demands of a national Socialism’. And it must no longer present an ‘exaggerated emphasis on the crucifed Christ.’ This tenet was defeatist and depressing, which was to say Jewish. Germany needed hope and victory!”
Lord, have mercy, friends, can you even imagine? However, in America TODAY many churches preach a gospel that is so watered down it is almost non-existent. Large, big churches led by pastors with very recognizable names. We must stay on our guard.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was encouraged to join in this nonsense and work against the Nazis from within the German Christian church. He told them that he couldn’t do that. “If you board the wrong train,” he said, “it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction.”
We must be absolutely certain that we are focused solely on Jesus and His gospel.
