Words From the Heart

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

And renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Psalms 51:10

Heart dilemmas are some of the most difficult kinds of dilemmas. I have been thinking and praying about "heart issues" this summer as I tend my vegetables, herbs, and sunflowers in my ridge-top garden.  I think the popular advice, “Follow your heart,” is a bit insensitive and even a little trite. It isn’t so easy to follow your heart. And it may not even be a good thing to do so.

What if your heart is torn between two strikingly different but equally compelling decisions?
Or what if your heart is too confused to make any sense out of a tangled jumble of options?
Or what if your heart is too broken to find the strength to even make the effort to choose?
Or what if . . . and this is the scariest thing of all . . . what if your heart is so deceived or mistaken that following it will lead to destruction and sorrow?

I am reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Bonhoeffer; Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy by Eric Metaxas. It is a heart-wrenching, inspiring portrait of a courageous man on the road to martyrdom. Bonheoffer was a man who was faced with making “choices of the heart” in Nazi Germany . . . and all of the choices were difficult ones.

Let me warn you before you read any farther . . . I am beating the drum of history. This is where my mind and my heart have been musing, lately. So this is what I have to share. No pensive musings or whimsical perspectives are rolling from my pen right now. Why? Because I see such parallels in Bonhoeffer’s world and our world today. And because I believe that the hearts of God’s people need to be stirred anew to hear the voice of His callings . . . . . .

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a man of deep heart struggles. As a loyal, patriotic German, Bonhoeffer’s heart told him to be faithful to his country . . . shouldn’t he fight to prevent its destruction by the Allied forces in World War II? As a disciple of Jesus Christ, his heart discerned heinously evil intent in Hitler’s maniacal reign . . . who could justify soldiering beneath such a man? As a responsible citizen, his heart told him that unbridled tyranny must be resisted . . . could sedition and treason ever be morally right? As a respected professor and pastor, his heart told him that public politics could bring grave consequences to people he loved . . . should he live a lie as a double spy so that truth might ultimately triumph?

A lot of “good people” joined the Nazi regime. They followed their heart. There was lots of passion. Lots of well-intentioned loyalty. There was patriotism and many, many grand, stirring speeches. But a few people saw the evil there.

Deitrich Bonhoeffer, in his moral and spiritual anguish, made a courageous decision. He decided to follow God’s heart. Not his own heart . . . God’s heart. He knew that God’s heart was a heart of grace. But he also knew that God’s grace had cost Him everything . . . and that following this Heart of Grace would likely be very costly indeed.

Dietrich became part of the underground movement to save the lives of Jews. He wrote a devotional book on Psalms when “Jewish” Old Testament writings were outlawed. He “patriotically” joined the Abwehr (German military intelligence), then secretly acted as a double-agent spy to assist the Allies in their efforts to defeat Hitler. He plotted with a group of men planning to overthrow the Nazi regime and was complicit in a plan to kill Hitler. And he continued to love and pastor and serve the church of God until he was ultimately martyred.

From reading Bonhoeffer’s own letters and writings, it is clear that these decisions were very difficult for him. He was often confused in His journey of obedience to the Heart of God. Many times he was alone and afraid. He was misunderstood and he was maligned. The war against tyranny and injustice in his beloved Germany became . . . for him . . . a spiritual war against evil. It was a war he never relished, and one he sometimes despaired of. But it was a war he did not shirk waging.

Sometimes, all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for deception to be ruthlessly beguiling and for people to be willingly naive. It can happen so easily when we are passionately following our hearts. The church of the Lord Jesus Christ allows such deception to gain credence and power when she becomes obsessively occupied with the “benefits” of grace . . . neglecting an honest relationship with the Lord, customizing the Truth of His Word to fit their preferred creeds, and shirking the responsibilities of so great a salvation.

For those who have been patient enough to read this far, I leave you with some quotes from someone much wiser than I. These are excerpts from Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship. See if you can hear the ring of truth in these passages . . . and see if you sense, as I do, a timeless call from God’s Heart to His church today . . .

Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite...

Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system. It means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught as the Christian “conception” of God. An intellectual assent to that idea is held to be of itself sufficient to secure remission of sins. The Church which holds the correct doctrine of grace has, it is supposed, ipso facto a part in that grace. In such a Church the world finds a cheap covering for its sins; no contrition is required, still less any real desire to be delivered from sin. Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God ...

Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything, they say, and so everything can remain as it was before. “All for sin could not atone.” . . . Well, then, let the Christian live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.... Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate...

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man’ will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which He speaks as it pleases Him. Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”