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Oh, Give Our Frightened Souls The Sure Salvation For Which, O Lord, You Taught Us To Prepare. And When This Cup You Give Is Filled To Brimming With Bitter Suffering, Hard To Understand, We Take It Thankfully And Without Trembling, Out Of So Good And So Beloved A Hand. Yet When Again In This Same World You Give Us The Joy We Had, The Brightness Of Your Sun, We Shall Remember All The Days We Lived Through, And Our Whole Life Shall Then Be Yours Alone.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Oh, Give Our Frightened

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Oh, Give Our Frightened Souls The Sure Salvation For Which, O Lord, You Taught Us To Prepare. And When This Cup You Give Is Filled To Brimming With Bitter Suffering, Hard To Understand, We Take It Thankfully And Without Trembling, Out Of So Good And So Beloved A Hand. Yet When Again In This Same World You Give Us The Joy We Had, The Brightness Of Your Sun, We Shall Remember All The Days We Lived Through, And Our Whole Life Shall Then Be Yours Alone.

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If Our Christianity Has Ceased To Be Serious About Discipleship, If We Have Watered Down The Gospel Into Emotional Uplift Which Makes No Costly Demands And Which Fails To Distinguish Between Natural And Christian Existence, Then We Cannot Help Regarding The Cross As An Ordinary Everyday Calamity, As One Of The Trials And Tribulations Of Life. We Have Then Forgotten That The Cross Means Rejection And Shame As Well As Suffering .

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Bless Them That Persecute You.' If Our Enemy Cannot Put Up With Us Any Longer And Takes To Cursing Us, Our Immediate Reaction Must Be To Lift Up Our Hands And Bless Him. Our Enemies Are The Blessed Of The Lord. Their Curse Can Do Us No Harm. May Their Poverty Be Enriched With All The Riches Of God, With The Blessing Of Him Whom They Seek To Oppose In Vain. We Are Ready To Endure Their Curses So Long As They Redound To Their Blessing.

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We Have Learnt, Rather Too Late, That Action Comes, Not From Thought, But From A Readiness For Responsibility.

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Fruits Of The Spirit

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Intercessory Prayer Is The Purifying Bath Into Which The Individual And The Community Must Enter Every Day.

Just As Our Love For God Begins With Listening To God's Word, The Beginning Of Love For Other Christians Is Learning To Listen To Them.

Blessed Are They That Hunger And Thirst After Righteousness: For They Shall Be Filled. Not Only Do The Followers Of Jesus Renounce Their Rights, They Renounce Their Own Righteousness Too. They Get No Praise For Their Achievements Or Sacrifices. They Cannot Have Righteous– Ness Except By Hungering And Thirsting For It (this Applies Equally To Their Own Righteousness And To The Righteousness Of God On Earth ), Always They Look Forward To The Future Righteousness Of God, But They Cannot Establish It For Themselves. Those Who Follow Jesus Grow Hungry And Thirsty On The Way.

Sanctification Means That The Christians Have Been Judged Already, And That They Are Being Preserved Until The Coming Of Christ And Are Ever Advancing Towards It.

Disciples Will Not Be Weakened By Suffering, Worn Down, And Embittered Until They Are Broken. Instead, They Bear Suffering, By The Power Of Him Who Supports Them. The Disciples Bear The Suffering Laid On Them Only By The Power Of Him Who Bears All Suffering On The Cross. As Bearers Of Suffering, They Stand In Communion With The Crucified.

Love, In The Sense Of Spontaneous, Unreflective Action, Spells The Death Of The Old Man.

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A God Who Let Us Prove His Existence Would Be An Idol.

Discipleship Is Not Limited To What You Can Comprehend – It Must Transcend All Comprehension. Plunge Into The Deep Waters Beyond Your Own Comprehension, And I Will Help You To Comprehend Even As I Do. Bewilderment Is The True Comprehension. Not To Know Where You Are Going Is The True Knowledge. My Comprehension Transcends Yours.

If You Reject God's Commanding Word, You Will Not Receive God's Gracious Word.

Because I Am A Christian, Therefore, Every Day In Which I Do Not Penetrate More Deeply Into The Knowledge Of God's Word In Holy Scripture Is A Lost Day For Me. I Can Only Move Forward With Certainty Upon The Firm Ground Of The Word Of God. And, As A Christian, I Learn To Know The Holy Scriptures In No Other Way Than By Hearing The Word Preached And By Prayerful Meditation.

Cheap Grace Is Grace Without Discipleship.

Christian Discipleship

There Is No Way To Peace Along The Way To Safety. For Peace Must Be Dared. It Is The Great Venture.

It Is The Nature, And The Advantage, Of Strong People That They Can Raise The Crucial Questions And Form A Clear Opinion About Them.

Prayer Does Not Mean Simply To Pour Out One's Heart. It Means Rather To Find The Way To God And To Speak With Him, Whether The Heart Is Full Or Empty.

But Discipleship Never Consists In This Or That Specific Action: It Is Always A Decision, Either For Or Against Jesus Christ...christ Speaks To Us Exactly As He Spoke To Them. It Was Not As Though They First Recognized Him As The Christ And Then Received His Command. They Believed His Word And Command And Recognized Him As The Christ--in That Order.

How Would You Expect To Find Community While You Intentionally Withdraw From It At Some Point? The Disobedient Cannot Believe; Only The Obedient Believe.

God Loves Human Beings. God Loves The World. Not An Ideal Human, But Human Beings As They Are; Not An Ideal World, But The Real World. What We Find Repulsive In Their Opposition To God, What We Shrink Back From With Pain And Hostility, Namely, Real Human Beings, The Real World, This Is For God The Ground Of Unfathomable Love.

We Ought Not To Be In Too Much Of A Hurry Here To Speak Piously Of God's Will And Guidance. It Is Obvious, And It Should Not Be Ignored, That It Is Your Own Very Human Wills That Are At Work Here, Celebrating Their Triumph; The Course That You Are Taking At The Outset Is One That You Have Chosen For Yourselves.

The Future And The Hope For The Middle Class Church Lies In The Renewal Of Its Lifeblood, Which Is Only Possible If The Church Succeeds In Winning The Working Class.

One Who Loves His Community Destroys Community; One Who Loves Its Members Builds Community.

Any Honours That Come Our Way Are Only Stolen From Him To Whom Alone They Really Belong, The Lord Who Sent Us.

As Brother Stands By Brother In Distress, Binding Up His Wounds And Soothing His Pain, So Let Us Show Our Love Towards Our Enemy. There Is No Deeper Distress To Be Found In The World, No Pain More Bitter Than Our Enemy's. Nowhere Is Service More Necessary Or More Blessed Than When We Serve Our Enemies.

In Jesus Christ We Have Been Chosen From Eternity, Accepted In Time, And United For Eternity.

Wherever It Pleases God To Put Man In This World, The Christian Must Be Ready For Martyrdom And Death. It Is Only In This Way That Man Learns Faith.

Unless He Obeys, A Man Cannot Believe.

The Heart Clings To Collected Treasure. Stored-up Possessions Get Between Me And God. Where My Treasure Is, There Is My Trust, My Security, My Comfort, My God. Treasure Means Idolatry.

The Fact That We Do Not Speak It But Sing It Only Expresses The Fact That Our Spoken Words Are Inadequate To Express What We Want To Say, That The Burden Of Our Song Goes Far Beyond All Human Words.

The Entire Day Receives Order And Discipline When It Acquires Unity. This Unity Must Be Sought And Found In Morning Prayer. The Morning Prayer Determines The Day.

He Who Fears The Face Of God Does Not Fear The Face Of Man. He Who Fears The Face Of Man Does Not Fear The Face Of God.

It Is The Voice Of The Church That Is Heard In Singing Together. It Is Not You That Sings, It Is The Church That Is Singing, And You, As A Member Of The Church, May Share In Its Song.

Death Is The Supreme Festival On The Road To Freedom.

The More Genuine And The Deeper Our Community Becomes, The More Will Everything Else Between Us Recede, The More Clearly And Purely Will Jesus Christ And His Work Become The One And Only Thing That Is Vital Between Us.

Being A Christan Is Less About Cautiously Avoiding Sin Than About Courageously And Actively Doing God's Will.

Discipleship Means Adherence To Christ And, Because Christ Is The Object Of That Adherence, It Must Take The Form Of Discipleship. An Abstract Theology, A Doctrinal System, A General Religious Knowledge Of The Subject Of Grace Or The Forgiveness Of Sins, Render Discipleship Superfluous, And In Fact Exclude Any Idea Of Discipleship Whatsoever, And Are Essentially Inimical To The Whole Conception Of Following Christ....christianity Without The Living Christ Is Inevitably Christianity Without Discipleship, And Christianity Without Discipleship Is Always Christianity Without Christ.

Following Christ

I Believe That Nothing That Happens To Me Is Meaningless And That It Is Good For Us All That It Should Be So, Even If It Runs Counter To Our Own Wishes. As I See It, I'm Here For Some Purpose, And I Only Hope I May Fulfill It.

Often We Combat Our Evil Thoughts Most Effectively If We Absolutely Refuse To Allow Them To Be Expressed In Words.

While We Exert Ourselves To Grow Beyond Our Humanity, To Leave The Human Behind Us, God Becomes Human; And We Must Recognize That God Wills That We Be Human, Real Human Beings. While We Distinguish Between Pious And Godless, Good And Evil, Noble And Base, God Loves Real People Without Distinction.

Do Not Worry! Earthly Goods Deceive The Human Heart Into Believing That They Give It Security And Freedom From Worry. But In Truth, They Are What Cause Anxiety. The Heart Which Clings To Goods Receives With Them The Choking Burden Of Worry. Worry Collects Treasures, And Treasures Produce More Worries. We Desire To Secure Our Lives With Earthly Goods; We Want Our Worrying To Make Us Worry-free, But The Truth Is The Opposite. The Chains Which Bind Us To Earthly Goods, The Clutches Which Hold The Goods Tight, Are Themselves Worries.

Only He Who Gives Thanks For The Little Things Receives The Big Things.

We Are Silent At The Beginning Of The Day Because God Should Have The First Word, And We Are Silent Before Going To Sleep Because The Last Word Also Belongs To God.

A Home Is A Kingdom Of It's Own In The Midst Of The World, A Stronghold Amid Life's Storms And Stresses, A Refuge, Even A Sanctuary.

The Deep Meaning Of The Cross Of Christ Is That There Is No Suffering On Earth That Is Not Borne By God.

We Must Be Ready To Allow Ourselves To Be Interrupted By God. God Will Be Constantly Crossing Our Paths And Canceling Our Plans By Sending Us People With Claims And Petitions.

Christianity Means Community Through Jesus Christ And In Jesus Christ. No Christian Community Is More Or Less Than This. Whether It Is A Brief, Single Encounter Or The Daily Fellowship Of Years, Christian Community Is Only This. We Belong To One Another Only Through And In Jesus Christ.

Joy Draws Its Nourishment From Quietness And From The Unfathomable.

God Can Make A New Beginning With People Whenever God Pleases, But Not People With God. Therefore, People Cannot Make A New Beginning At All; They Can Only Pray For One. Where People Are On Their Own And Live By Their Own Devices, There Is Only The Old, The Past.

We Have Become So Accustomed To The Idea Of Divine Love And Of God's Coming At Christmas That We No Longer Feel The Shiver Of Fear That God's Coming Should Arouse In Us. We Are Indifferent To The Message, Taking Only The Pleasant And Agreeable Out Of It And Forgetting The Serious Aspect, That The God Of The World Draws Near To The People Of Our Little Earth And Lays Claim To Us. The Coming Of God Is Truly Not Only Glad Tidings, But First Of All Frightening News For Everyone Who Has A Conscience.

All Are Called To Be What In The Reality Of God They Are Already.

Battles Are Won, Not With Weapons, But With God. They Are Won Where The Way Leads To The Cross.

A Day Without Morning And Evening Prayers And Personal Intercessions Is Actually A Day Without Meaning Or Importance.

If My Sinfulness Appears To Me To Be In Any Way Smaller Or Less Detestable In Comparison With The Sins Of Others, I Am Still Not Recognizing My Sinfulness At All. ... How Can I Possibly Serve Another Person In Unfeigned Humility If I Seriously Regard His Sinfulness As Worse Than My Own?

We Do God’s Work For Our Brothers And Sisters When We Learn To Listen To Them. So Often Christians, Especially Preachers, Think That Their Only Service Is Always To Have To 'offer' Something When They Are Together With Other People. They Forget That Listening Can Be A Greater Service Than Speaking. Many People Seek A Sympathetic Ear And Do Not Find It Among Christians, Because These Christians Are Talking Even When They Should Be Listening.

Oh, Give Our Frightened Souls The Sure Salvation For Which, O Lord, You Taught Us To Prepare. And When This Cup You Give Is Filled To Brimming With Bitter Suffering, Hard To Understand, We Take It Thankfully And Without Trembling, Out Of So Good And So Beloved A Hand. Yet When Again In This Same World You Give Us The Joy We Had, The Brightness Of Your Sun, We Shall Remember All The Days We Lived Through, And Our Whole Life Shall Then Be Yours Alone.

Ultimate Seriousness In Not Without A Dose Of Humor.

The Cross Is Not The Terrible End To An Otherwise God-fearing And Happy Life, But It Meets Us At The Beginning Of Our Communion With Christ. When Christ Calls A Man, He Bids Him Come And Die.

We Have Grown So Accustomed To The Idea Of Divine Love...that We No Longer Sense The Awe That God's Coming Should Awaken In Us.

Thinking In Terms Of Two Realms Understands The Paired Concepts Worldy-christia N, Natural-superna Tural, Profane-sacred, Rational-revela Tions, As Ultimate Static Opposites...and Fails To Recognize The Original Unity Of These Opposites In The Christ-reality.

The Only Man Who Has The Right To Say That He Is Justified By Grace Alone Is The Man Who Has Left All To Follow Christ. Such A Man Knows That The Call To Discipleship Is A Gift Of Grace, And That The Call Is Inseparable From The Grace. But Those Who Try To Use This Grace As A Dispensation From Following Christ Are Simply Deceiving Themselves.

Following Christ

To Endure The Cross Is Not Tragedy; It Is The Suffering Which Is The Fruit Of An Exclusive Allegiance To Jesus Christ.

If You Board The Wrong Train, It Is No Use Running Along The Corridor In The Other Direction.

Judging Others Makes Us Blind, Whereas Love Is Illuminating.

Judging Yourself

In Normal Life We Hardly Realize How Much More We Receive Than We Give, And Life Cannot Be Rich Without Such Gratitude. It Is So Easy To Overestimate The Importance Of Our Own Achievements Compared With What We Owe To The Help Of Others.

No One Should Be Surprised At The Difficulty Of Faith, If There Is Some Part Of His Life Where He Is Consciously Resisting Or Disobeying The Commandment Of Jesus. Is There Some Part Of Your Life Which You Are Refusing To Surrender At His Behest, Some Sinful Passion, Maybe, Or Some Animosity, Some Hope, Perhaps Your Ambition Or Your Reason? ... How Can You Hope To Enter Into Communion With Him When At Some Point In Your Life You Are Running Away From Him?

If Jesus Christ Is Not True God, How Could He Help Us? If He Is Not True Man, How Could He Help Us?

God Cannot Endure That Unfestive, Mirthless Attitude Of Ours In Which We Eat Our Bread In Sorrow, With Pretentious, Busy Haste, Or Even With Shame. Through Our Daily Meals He Is Calling Us To Rejoice, To Keep Holiday In The Midst Of Our Working Day.

It Is From God That Parents Receive Their Children, And It Is To God That They Should Lead Them.

Christ Became Our Brother In Order To Help Us. Through Him Our Brother Has Become Christ For Us In The Power And Authority Of The Commission Christ Has Given Him. Our Brother Stands Before Us The Sign Of The Truth And The Grace Of God. He Has Been Given To Us To Help Us. He Hears The Confession Of Our Sins In Christ's Stead And He Forgives Our Sins In Christ's Name. He Keeps The Secret Of Our Confession As God Keeps It. When I Go To My Brother To Confess, I Am Going To God.

The Church Must Share In The Secular Problems Of Ordinary Human Life, Not Dominating, But Helping And Serving.

So Many People Come To Church With A Genuine Desire To Hear What We Have To Say, Yet They Are Always Going Back Home With The Uncomfortable Feeling That We Are Making It Too Difficult For Them To Come To Jesus.

Uncomfortable Feeling

Man Has Learned To Cope With All Questions Of Importance Without Recourse To God As A Working Hypothesis.

It Is Grace, Nothing But Grace, That We Are Allowed To Live In Community With Christian Brethren.

God Wants To See Human Beings, Not Ghosts Who Shun The World. . . . Our Marriage Must Be A 'yes' To God's Earth. It Must Strengthen Our Resolve To Do And Accomplish Something On Earth. I Fear That Christians Who Venture To Stand On Earth On Only One Leg Will Stand In Heaven On Only One Leg Too.

To Recognize The Significant In The Factual Is Wisdom.

Every Sermon Must Contain A Certain Shot Of Heresy.

Gratitude Changes The Pangs Of Memory Into A Tranquil Joy.

There Is No Kindness More Cruel Than The Kindness Which Consigns Another Person To Their Sin.

When A Man Really Gives Up Trying To Make Something Out Of Himself - A Saint, Or A Converted Sinner, Or A Churchman (a So-called Clerical Somebody), A Righteous Or Unrighteous Man,...and Throws Himself Into The Arms Of God...then He Wakes With Christ In Gethsemane. That Is Faith, That Is Metanoia And It Is Thus That He Becomes A Man And Christian.

The Kingdom Is To Be In The Midst Of Your Enemies

The Gift Of Christ Is Not The Christian Religion, But The Grace And Love Of God Which Culminate In The Cross.

Through Our Daily Meals He Is Calling Us To Rejoice, To Keep Holiday In The Midst Of Our Working Day.

If We Are To Pray Aright, Perhaps It Is Quite Necessary That We Pray Contrary To Our Own Heart. Not What We Want To Pray Is Important, But What God Wants Us To Pray. The Richness Of The Word Of God Ought To Determine Our Prayer, Not The Poverty Of Our Heart.

There Is No Way To Peace Along The Way Of Safety. For Peace Must Be Dared. It Is Itself The Great Venture And Can Never Be Safe. Peace Is The Opposite Of Security. To Demand Guarantees Is To Want To Protect Oneself. Peace Means Giving Oneself Completely To God's Commandment. Wanting No Security, But In Faith And Obedience Laying The Destiny Of The Nations In The Hand Of Almighty God. Not Trying To Direct It For Selfish Purposes. Battles Are Won Not With Weapons, But With God. They Are Won When The Way Leads To The Cross.

It Is Very Easy To Overestimate The Importance Of Our Own Achievements In Comparison With What We Owe Others.

What Is The "extraordinary"? It Is The Love Of Jesus Christ Himself, Love That Goes To The Cross In Suffering Obedience.

There Is A Wrong Way Of Staying In The World And A Wrong Way Of Fleeing From It. In Both Cases We Are Fashioning Ourselves According To The World.

Sometimes We Just Need A Firm Kick In The Pants. An Unsmiling Expectation That If We Mean All These Wonderful Things We Talk About And Sing About, Then Let’s See Something To Prove It.

One Cannot Simply Read The Bible, Like Other Books. One Must Be Prepared Really To Enquire Of It. Only Thus Will It Reveal Itself. Only If We Expect From It The Ultimate Answer, Shall We Receive It. That Is Because In The Bible God Speaks To Us. And One Cannot Simply Think About God In One’s Own Strength, One Has To Inquire Of Him. Only If We Seek Him, Will He Answer Us.

Principles Are Only Tools In The Hands Of God; They Will Soon Be Thrown Away When They Are No Longer Useful.

In A Word, Live Together In The Forgiveness Of Your Sins, For Without It No Human Fellowship, Least Of All A Marriage, Can Survive. Don't Insist On Your Rights, Don't Blame Each Other, Don't Judge Or Condemn Each Other, Don't Find Fault With Each Other, But Accept Each Other As You Are, And Forgive Each Other Every Day From The Bottom Of Your Hearts.

A Father Acts On Behalf Of His Children By Working, Providing, Intervening, Struggling, And Suffering For Them. In So Doing, He Really Stands In Their Place. He Is Not An Isolated Individual, But Incorporates The Selves Of Several People In His Own Self.

So The Christian, Too, Belongs Not In The Seclusion Of A Cloistered Life But In The Thick Of Foes. There Is His Commission, His Work.

Originally Man Was Made In The Image Of God, But Now His Likeness To God Is A Stolen One. As The Image Of God Man Draws His Life Entirely From His Origin In God, But The Man Who Has Become Like God Has Forgotten How He Was At His Origin And Has Made Himself His Own Creator And Judge.

May God In His Mercy Lead Us Through These Times; But Above All, May He Lead Us To Himself.

It Is Worse For A Liar To Tell The Truth Than For A Lover Of Truth To Lie.... There Is A Truth Which Is Of Satan. Its Essence Is That Under The Semblance Of Truth It Denies Everything That Is Real. It Lives Upon Hatred Of The Real World Which Is Created And Loved By God.

The Mark Of Solitude Is Silence, As Speech Is The Mark Of Community. Silence And Speech Have The Same Inner Correspondence And Difference As Do Solitude And Community. One Does Not Exist Without The Other. Right Speech Comes Out Of Silence, And Right Silence Comes Out Of Speech.

There Is Not A Place To Which The Christian Can Withdraw From The World, Whether It Be Outwardly Or In The Sphere Of The Inner Life. Any Attempt To Escape From The World Must Sooner Or Later Be Paid For With A Sinful Surrender To The World.

Destruction Of The Embryo In The Mother's Womb Is A Violation Of The Right To Live Which God Has Bestowed Upon This Nascent Life. To Raise The Question Whether We Are Here Concerned Already With A Human Being Or Not Is Merely To Confuse The Issue. The Simple Fact Is That God Certainly Intended To Create A Human Being And That This Nascent Human Being Has Been Deliberately Deprived Of His Life. And That Is Nothing But Murder.

Only The Man Who Follows The Command Of Jesus Single-mindedly, And Unresistingly Lets His Yoke Rest Upon Him, Finds His Burden Easy, And Under Its Gentle Pressure Receives The Power To Persevere In The Right Way. The Command Of Jesus Is Hard, Unutterably Hard, For Those Who Try To Resist It. But For Those Who Willingly Submit, The Yoke Is Easy, And The Burden Is Light.

When People Are Deeply Affected By The Word, They Tell It To Other People.

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Gloria Macapagal Arroyo

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