4/9/08

One thing Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a lot about was "this-worldliness." He didn't want Christians to be so focused on being pious and holy that they completely abandoned their place on this earth, focusing so much on heaven that they didn't live in the world. This is what I wrote in my journal last week, while struggling with being invaded by worldliness:

The problem with Bonhoeffer's "this-worldly" theology is that living completely in this world risks the minds, souls, and emotions of those whose faith is weak. I don't think I am strong enough to stand up against the pressures of this world. I am weak. I back down, I give up, I crumble under the weight and flatten when pressed from all sides. I cannot do it.

I cannot do it. The key to living in this world is to abide in Christ, and He in me. The key to living in this world is dying to it. That's how Christ succeeded. The key to living in this world is realizing there is ultimate truth, and we must fill our minds with it. The key to living in this world is looking at it through heavenly eyes. Not "being above it," but living in it as Christ did, and seeing it through the eyes of the Father. Not condescending, but relating. Not judging, but loving.

How are we alone expected to fight off the things the world feeds us as truths, ways to live, things to be? We aren't expected to. Not alone. Jesus, without the divine, could not have done it with merely His humanity. Humanity is frail, and bends to this world. Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus. (Phil. 2:5-11.)

In emptying himself of humanity, the divine was able to fulfill His calling. Jesus tells us in John 15, "Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love."

What do you think?