Two cautions must be remembered as such discernment is employed. First, “obedience to Jesus’ call is never an autonomous human deed. Thus, not even something like actually giving away one’s wealth is the obedience required” (83). And, second, “wherever simple obedience is fundamentally eliminated, there again the costly grace of Jesus’ call has become the cheap grace of self-justification” (81). In other words, as Bonhoeffer says later in a prison letter, the Christian life is not about trying to be a saint; it is about having faith, a lifetime of daily, active faith.331
