Sunday

'CONFESS YOUR faults to one another.' (James 5:16) He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their fellowship in service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break-through to fellowship does not occur because, though they have fellowship with one another as devout people they do not have fellowship as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and from the fellowship.... But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you. He doesn’t want anything from you—a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. This message is liberation through truth. The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him. He wants to see you as you are, He wants to be gracious to you. You can dare to be a sinner.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together