“Because consideration of the
Scriptures, prayer, and intercession involve a service that is our duty, and
because the grace of God can be found in this service, we should train
ourselves to set a regular time during the day for them, just as we do for every
other service we perform. That is not “legalism,” but discipline and
faithfulness.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life
Together, Fortress Press, 2015 (Reader’s Edition), page 65.
Paul writes in Romans Chapter
12 that we should offer ourselves as living sacrifices because it is our
“reasonable” or “logical” service, response to God, or…we might say…in light of
His marvelous love and redemption…that it is our duty. Romans 12 begins thusly
and then proceeds to show how the offering of ourselves to God results in the
offering of ourselves to one another in Christ. Elsewhere Paul writes to the
effect that he has a duty to preach the Gospel. We are called by God and we
have a duty to respond to Him and to respond in service to one another.
We are to be disciples – ones
who are taught, ones who are disciplined and molded into the image of our
Teacher, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. A potter does not place a lump of
clay on a wheel and say, “Be what you want to be. Take whatever form suits you.”
Yet we seem to think that being a Christian is less about “following Christ”
than it is achieving whatever “potential” and “fulfillment” we have chosen for ourselves. Has “following
Christ” become a code word for “living the good life in religious guise”?
Christians have duties, we
have duties to God and duties to fellow Christians and duties to our neighbors.
The wise believer in Jesus Christ knows that these duties are interwoven – in
Christ, as we love God we love others and as we love others we love God.
It is my duty to ponder the
Scriptures, to read them, to know them, to submit to them, and in my submission
to meet God in them. It is my duty to commune with God in prayer. It is my duty
to intercede for those with whom I share life
together, as well as to intercede for others, within and without the
Kingdom. This is no more legalism than it is legalism for Queen Elizabeth II to
fulfill her duties as the Queen – she lives as who she is, we are to live as
who we are in Christ.
Was it legalism when Jesus
prayed, “Nevertheless, not my will by your will be done?” Was it legalism when
Paul wrote, “For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for
necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! For if
I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been
entrusted with a stewardship (1 Cor. 9:16 – 17). We can say much the same thing
about meditating on the Bible, prayer, and intercession.
When we gather around the Word
and prayer and intercession our individual lives are strengthened; when our
individual (and familial) lives are engaged in the Word and prayer and
intercession then our gatherings are strengthened. This is the fabric of our
calling, the fabric of our duty in Christ and toward one another, this is the
fabric of life together.
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