Pray for One Another

This is an excerpt from "Life Together". This is the best book I have read on "being the church" a common phrase in the simple church movement of today. It was written over 70 years ago by the Lutheran priest Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me... This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side is concerned...
Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the Cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace. Then everything in him that repels us falls away; we see him in all his destitution and need. His need and his sin become so heavy and oppresive that we feel them as our own, and we can do nothing else but pray...To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.
He who denies his neighbor the service of praying for him denies him the service of a christian...we can no longer escape the realization that the ministry of intercession requires time of every Christian, but most of all the pastor...For the pastor it is an indispensable duty and his whole ministry will depend on it. Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?"

Faith That Saves

Jam 2:14 Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it?
Jam 2:15 For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved
Jam 2:16 and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup--where does that get you?
Jam 2:17 Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?
Jam 2:18 I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department." Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove.
Jam 2:19 Do I hear you professing to believe in the one and only God, but then observe you complacently sitting back as if you had done something wonderful? That's just great. Demons do that, but what good does it do them?
Jam 2:20 Use your heads! Do you suppose for a minute that you can cut faith and works in two and not end up with a corpse on your hands?


Gal 5:6 For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.

1Co 13:1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
1Co 13:2 If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing.
1Co 13:3 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.


Can that faith "which is without works" save him? No more than it can profit his neighbour. -John Wesley

Wesley's quote leads us to turn the microscope on ourselves and ask...Do your neighbors BENEFIT from your faith? Understand, I am not asking are your neighbors effected by your faith because honestly we can have a good effect or a bad effect on others because of faith. If we are self-righteous and condemning our neighbors are effected but they would harldy see it as beneficial. I am also not asking do your neighbors know you are a christian. We can listen to our christian cd's and wear our t-shirts but these are of no or little benefit to our neighbors. Jesus calls us to love our neighbors. When asked "who is my neighbor" Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan. Check it out in Lk 10. Not only does he teach who are neighbor is but He also teaches how we are supposed to love them. He is describing the type of faith that saves.