# “The bright day of Christian fellowship” by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2009/03/17/the-bright-day-of-christian-fellowship-by-dietrich-bonhoeffer/
- Published: 2009-03-17T16:59:21-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“Because God has already laid the only foundation of our fellowship, because God
has bound us together in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ, long before
we entered into common life with them, we enter into that common life not as demanders
but as thankful recipients. We thank God for what He has done for us. We thank God
for giving us brethren who live by His call, by His forgiveness, and His promise.

We do not complain of what God does not give us; we rather thank God for what He
does give us daily. And is not what has been given us enough: brothers, who will
go on living with us through sin and need under the blessing of His grace? Is the
divine gift of Christian fellowship anything less than this, any day, even the most
difficult and distressing day? Even when sin and misunderstanding burden the communal
life, is not the sinning brother still a brother, with whom I, too, stand under 
the Word of Christ?

Will not his sin be a constant occasion for me to give thanks that both of us may
live in the forgiving love of God in Jesus Christ? Thus the very hour of disillusionment
with my brother becomes incomparably salutary, because it so thoroughly teaches 
me that neither of us can ever live by our own words and deeds, but only by that
one Word and Deed which really binds us together– the forgiveness of sins in Jesus
Christ. When the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian
fellowship.”

–Dietrich Bonhoeffer, _Life Together_ (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), 28-9.

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