Background Image

...

Still More Pathetic Is The Total Collapse Of Moral Fanaticism. Fanatics Think That Their Single-minded Principles Qualify Them To Do Battle With The Powers Of Evil; But Like A Bull They Rush At The Red Cloak Instead Of The Person Who Is Holding It; He Exhausts Himself And Is Beaten. He Gets Entangled In Non-essentials And Falls Into The Trap Set By Cleverer People.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Still More Pathetic Is

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

...

Still More Pathetic Is The Total Collapse Of Moral Fanaticism. Fanatics Think That Their Single-minded Principles Qualify Them To Do Battle With The Powers Of Evil; But Like A Bull They Rush At The Red Cloak Instead Of The Person Who Is Holding It; He Exhausts Himself And Is Beaten. He Gets Entangled In Non-essentials And Falls Into The Trap Set By Cleverer People.

Views: 11

Topic

More From Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It Seems To Me More Important Actually To Share Someones Distress Than To Use Smooth Words About It.

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

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

The Essence Of Grace, We Suppose, Is That The Account Has Been Paid In Advance; And, Because It Has Been Paid, Everything Can Be Had For Nothing.

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

It Is Not In Our Life That God's Help And Presence Must Still Be Proved, But Rather God's Presence And Help Have Been Demonstrated For Us In The Life Of Jesus Christ. It Is In Fact More Important For Us To Know What God Did To Israel, To His Son Jesus Christ, Than To Seek What God Intends For Us Today.

Man Seeks, In His Manhood, Not Orders, Not Laws And Peremptory Dogmas, But Counsel From One Who Is Earnest In Goodness And Faithful In Friendship, Making Man Free.

You Can Only Learn What Obedience Is By Obeying

Neighbourliness Is Not A Quality In Other People, It Is Simply Their Claim On Ourselves.

And If We Ask How Are We To Know Where Our Hearts Are, The Answer Is Just As Simple - Everything Which Hinders Us From Loving God Above All Things And Acts As A Barrier Between Ourselves And Our Obedience To Jesus Is Our Treasure, And The Place Where Our Heart Is.

...gratitude Transforms The Torment Of Memory Of Good Things Now Gone Into Silent Joy. One Bears What Was Lovely In The Past Not As A Thorn But As A Precious Gift Deep Within, A Hidden Treasure Of Which One Can Always Be Certain.

Faith Is Only Real When There Is Obedience, Never Without It, And Faith Only Becomes Faith In The Act Of Obedience.

Only The Believer Obeys — Obedience Follows Faith, The Way Good Fruit Comes From A Good Tree. Only The Obedient Believe.

Cheap Grace Is The Deadly Enemy Of Our Church. We Are Fighting Today For Costly Grace.

In The Gospels The Very First Step A Man Must Take Is An Act Which Radically Affects His Whole Existence.

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.

The Early Morning Belongs To The Church Of The Risen Christ. At The Break Of Light It Remembers The Morning On Which Death And Sin Lay Prostrate In Defeat And New Life And Salvation Were Given To Mankind

Still More Pathetic Is The Total Collapse Of Moral Fanaticism. Fanatics Think That Their Single-minded Principles Qualify Them To Do Battle With The Powers Of Evil; But Like A Bull They Rush At The Red Cloak Instead Of The Person Who Is Holding It; He Exhausts Himself And Is Beaten. He Gets Entangled In Non-essentials And Falls Into The Trap Set By Cleverer People.

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.

Struggling Against The Legalism Of Simple Obedience, We End By Setting Up The Most Dangerous Law Of All, The Law Of The World And The Law Of Grace. In Our Effort To Combat Legalism We Land Ourselves In The Worst Kind Of Legalism. The Only Way Of Overcoming This Legalism Is By Real Obedience To Christ When He Calls Us To Follow Him; For In Jesus The Law Is At Once Fulfilled And Cancelled.

It Is Not Your Love That Sustains The Marriage, But From Now On, The Marriage That Sustains Your Love.

Inspirational Marriage

Marriage Problems

The Will Of God, To Which The Law Gives Expression, Is That Men Should Defeat Their Enemies By Loving Them.

Before Jesus Leads His Disciples Into Suffering, Humiliation, Disgrace, And Disdain, He Summons Them And Shows Himself To Them As The Lord In God's Glory.

Self-justification And Judging Others Go Together, As Justification By Grace And Serving Others Go Together.

If You Set Out To Seek Freedom, Then Learn Above All Things To Govern Your Soul And Your Senses . . . Only Through Discipline May A Man Learn To Be Free.

If We Want To Read And To Pray The Prayers Of The Bible And Especially The Psalms, Therefore, We Must Not Ask First What They Have To Do With Us, But What They Have To Do With Jesus Christ...it Does Not Depend, Therefore, On Whether The Psalms Express Adequately That Which We Feel At A Given Moment In Our Heart. 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.

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.

I Can Never Know Beforehand How God’s Image Should Appear In Others. That Image Always Manifests A Completely New And Unique Form That Comes Solely From God’s Free And Sovereign Creation. To Me The Sight May Seem Strange, Even Ungodly. But God Creates Every Man In The Likeness Of His Son, The Crucified. After All, Even That Image Certainly Looked Strange And Ungodly To Me Before I Grasped It.

But They All Stood Beneath The Cross, Enemies And Believers, Doubters And Cowards, Revilers And Devoted Followers. His Prayer, In That Hour, And His Forgiveness, Was Meant For Them All, And For All Their Sins. The Mercy And Love Of God Are At Work Even In The Midst Of His Enemies. It Is The Same Jesus Christ, Who Of His Grace Calls Us To Follow Him, And Whose Grace Saves The Murderer Who Mocks Him On The Cross In His Last Hour.

We Are Not To Simply Bandage The Wounds Of Victims Beneath The Wheels Of Injustice, We Are To Drive A Spoke Into The Wheel Itself.

I Need The Christ That Is In You, And You Need The Christ That Is In Me.

To Deny Oneself Is To Be Aware Only Of Christ And No More Of Self, To See Only Him Who Goes Before And No More The Road Which Is Too Hard For Us. Once More, All That Self-denial Can Say Is, 'he Leads The Way, Keep Close To Him.'

Silence In The Face Of Evil Is Evil Itself.

After He Has Been Following Christ For A Long Time, The Disciple Of Jesus Will Be Asked, "lacked Ye Anything?" And He Will Answer "nothing, Lord." How Could He When He Knows That Despite Hunger And Nakedness, Persecution And Danger, The Lord Is Always At His Side?

Following Christ

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.

Once A Man Has Truly Experienced The Mercy Of God In His Life He Will Henceforth Aspire Only To Serve.

Desires To Which We Cling Closely Can Easily Prevent Us From Being What We Ought To Be And Can Be; And On The Other Hand, Desires Repeatedly Mastered For The Sake Of Present Duty Make Us Richer.lack Of Desire Is Poverty.

Anyone Who Thinks That His Time Is Too Valuable To Spend Keeping Quiet Will Eventually Have No Time For God And His Brother, But Only For Himself And For His Own Follies.

Every Wedding Must Be An Occasion Of Joy That Human Beings Can Do Such Great Things, That They Have Been Given Such Immense Freedom And Power To Take The Helm In Their Life's Journey.

Advent Creates People, New People.

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.

When You Read The Bible, You Must Think That Here And Now, God Is Speaking With Me

We Are So Afraid Of Silence That We Chase Ourselves From One Event To The Next In Order Not To Have To Spend A Moment Alone With Ourselves, In Order Not To Have To Look At Ourselves In The Mirror.

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.

Death Is Hell And Night And Cold, If It Is Not Transformed By Our Faith. But That Is Just What Is So Marvelous, That We Can Transform Death.

There Is Meaning In Every Journey That Is Unknown To The Traveler.

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.

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.

God Is Not A God Of The Emotions But The God Of Truth.

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

Human Love Has Little Regard For The Truth. It Makes The Truth Relative, Since Nothing, Not Even The Truth, Must Come Between It And The Beloved Person.

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.

The Church Is The Church Only When It Exists For Others.

Every Word Of Holy Scripture Was A Love Letter From God Directed Very Personally To Us And He Asked Us Whether We Loved Jesus.

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

If You Believe, Take The First Step, It Leads To Jesus Christ. If You Don't Believe, Take The First Step All The Same, For You Are Bidden To Take It.

It Is The Task Of Youth Not To Reshape The Church, But Rather To Listen To The Word Of God.

The Christian Life Is Participation In The Encounter Of Christ With The World.

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make In Your Life Is To Be Always Afraid Of Making A Mistake.

Making Mistakes

God Is Not Free From Human Beings But For Them.

The World Upon Whom Grace Is Thrust As A Bargain Will Grow Tired Of It.

Wherever There Are Sinners, The Weak, The Sorrowful, The Poor In The World, That Is Where God Goes.

Temptations Which Accompany The Working Day Will Be Conquered On The Basis Of The Morning Breakthrough To God. Decisions, Demanded By Work, Become Easier And Simpler Where They Are Made Not In The Fear Of Men, But Only In The Sight Of God. He Wants To Give Us Today The Power Which We Need For Our Work.

We Are To Find God In What We Know, Not In What We Don't Know.

Unsolved Problems

Where A People Prays, There Is The Church; And Where The Church Is; There Is Never Loneliness.

The More Deeply We Grow Into The Psalms And The More Often We Pray Them As Our Own, The More Simple And Rich Will Our Prayer Become.

God's Truth Judges Created Things Out Of Love, And Satan's Truth Judges Them Out Of Envy And Hatred.

The Pursuit Of Purity Is Not About The Suppression Of Lust, But About The Reorientation Of One's Life To A Larger Goal.

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.

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.

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.

Earthly Goods Are Given To Be Used, Not To Be Collected.... Hoarding Is Idolatry.

The Future Of Modern Society Depends Much More On The Quiet Heroism Of The Very Few Who Are Inspired By God. These Few Will Greatly Enjoy The Divine Inspiration And Will Be Prepared To Stand For The Dignity Of Man And True Freedom And To Keep The Law Of God, Even Of It Means Martyrdom Or Death.

Every Sermon Must Contain A Certain Shot Of Heresy.

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.

Who Among Us Will Celebrate Christmas Correctly? Whoever Finally Lays Down All Power, L Honor, All Reputation, All Vanity, All Arrogance, All Individualism Beside The Manger; Whoever Remains Lowly And Lets God Alone Be High; Whoever Looks At The Child In The Manger And Sees The Glory Of God Precisely In His Lowliness.

Whenever The Psalter Is Abandoned, An Incomparable Treasure Is Lost To The Christian Church. With Its Recovery Will Come Unexpected Power.

The Church Is Only The Church When It Exists For Others. To Make A Start, It Should Give Away All Its Property To Those In Need. The Clergy Must Live Solely On The Free-will Offerings Of Their Congregations, Or Possibly Engage In Some Secular Calling. The Church Must Share In The Secular Problems Of Ordinary Human Life, Not Dominating, But Helping And Serving. It Must Tell Men Of Every Calling What It Means To Live In Christ, To Exist For Others.

True Prayer Is Done In Secret, But This Does Not Rule Out The Fellowship Of Prayer Altogether, However Clearly We May Be Aware Of Its Dangers. In The Last Resort It Is Immaterial Whether We Pray In The Open Street Or In The Secrecy Of Our Chambers, Whether Briefly Or Lenghtily, In The Litany Of The Church, Or With The Sigh Of One Who Knows Not What He Should Pray For. True Prayer Does Not Depend Either On The Individual Or The Whole Body Of The Faithful, But Solely Upon The Knowledge That Our Heavenly Father Knows Our Needs.

Innumerable Times A Whole Christian Community Has Broken Down Because It Had Sprung From A Wish Dream… Every Human Wish Dream That Is Injected Into The Christian Community Is A Hindrance To Genuine Community And Must Be Banished If Genuine Community Is To Survive. He Who Loves His Dream Of A Community More Than The Christian Community Itself Becomes A Destroyer Of The Latter, Even Though His Personal Intentions May Be Ever So Honest And Earnest And Sacrificial.

Not Hero Worship, But Intimacy With Christ.

Death Reveals That The World Is Not As It Should Be But That It Stands In Need Of Redemption. Christ Alone Is The Conquering Of Death.

Every Call Of Christ Leads Into Death.

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

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

A Pastor Should Never Complain About His Congregation, Certainly Never To Other People, But Also Not To God. A Congregation Has Not Been Entrusted To Him In Order That He Should Become Its Accuser Before God And Men.

Unless He Obeys, A Man Cannot Believe.

If You Do A Good Job For Others, You Heal Yourself At The Same Time, Because A Dose Of Joy Is A Spiritual Cure.

Jesus' Call To Bear The Cross Places All Who Follow Him In The Community Of The Forgiveness Of Sins. Forgiving Sins Is The Christ-suffering Required Of His Disciples. It Is Required Of All Christians.

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

Time Is The Most Precious Gift In Our Possession, For It Is The Most Irrevocable. This Is What Makes It So Disturbing To Look Back Upon The Time Which We Have Lost. Time Lost Is Time When We Have Not Lived A Full Human Life, Time Unenriched By Experience, Creative Endeavor, Enjoyment, And Suffering. Time Lost Is Time Not Filled, Time Left Empty.

If Religion Is Onlya Garment Of Christianityand Even This Garment Has Looked Very Different At Different Timesthen What Is Religionless Christianity?

God Does Not Give Us Everything We Want, But He Does Fulfill His Promises.

The Church Has An Unconditional Obligation To The Victims Of Any Ordering Society, Even If They Do Not Belong To The Christian Community.

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

It Is Infinitely Easier To Suffer In Obedience To A Human Command Than To Accept Suffering As Free, Responsible Men.

It Is A Dangerous Error, Surely Very Widespread Among Christians, To Think That The Heart Can Pray By Itself.

It Is The Fellowship Of The Cross To Experience The Burden Of The Other. If One Does Not Experience It, The Fellowship He Belongs To Is Not Christian. If Any Member Refuses To Bear That Burden, He Denies The Law Of Christ.

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?

The Earthly Form Of Christ Is The Form That Died On The Cross. The Image Of God Is The Image Of Christ Crucified. It Is To This Image That The Life Of The Disciples Must Be Conformed; In Other Words, They Must Be Conformed To His Death (phil 3.10, Rom 6.4) The Christian Life Is A Life Of Crucifixion (gal 2.19) In Baptism The Form Of Christ's Death Is Impressed Upon His Own. They Are Dead To The Flesh And To Sin, They Are Dead To The World, And The World Is Dead To Them (gal 6.14). Anybody Living In The Strength Of Christ's Baptism Lives In The Strength Of Christ's Death.

We Must Be Ready To Allow Ourselves To Be Interrupted By God.....we Must Not.....assume That Our Schedule Is Our Own To Manage, But Allow It To Be Arranged By God.

Right Speech Comes Out Of Silence And Right Silence Comes Out Of Speech.

The Church Is Her True Self Only When She Exists For Humanity.

The Test Of The Morality Of A Society Is What It Does For Its Children.

As Long As We Let The Word Of God Be Our Only Armor, We Can Look Confidently Into The Future.

The Question Of Why Evil Exists Is Not A Theological Question, For It Assumes That It Is Possible To Go Behind The Existence Forced Upon Us As Sinners. If We Could Answer It Then We Would Not Be Sinners. We Could Make Something Else Responsible...the Theological Question Does Not Arise About The Origin Of Evil But About The Real Overcoming Of Evil On The Cross; It Ask For The Forgiveness Of Guilt, For The Reconciliation Of The Fallen World

A Pastor Who Does Not Pray Daily For His Congregation Is Not A Pastor.

God Is In The Manger, Wealth In Poverty, Light In Darkness, Succor In Abandonment. No Evil Can Befall Us; Whatever Men May Do To Us, They Cannot But Serve The God Who Is Secretly Revealed As Love And Rules The World And Our Lives.

The Person Who’s In Love With Their Vision Of Community Will Destroy Community. But The Person Who Loves The People Around Them Will Create Community Everywhere They Go.

Not To Speak Is To Speak. Not To Act Is To Act.

The Preaching Of Grace Can Only Be Protected By The Preaching Of Repentance.

Only What Is Essential Must Be Said.

There Is Nothing That Can Replace The Absence Of Someone Dear To Us, And One Should Not Even Attempt To Do So. One Must Simply Hold Out And Endure It. At First That Sounds Very Hard, But At The Same Time It Is Also A Great Comfort. For To The Extent The Emptiness Truly Remains Unfilled One Remains Connected To The Other Person Through It. It Is Wrong To Say That God Fills The Emptiness. God In No Way Fills It But Much More Leaves It Precisely Unfilled And Thus Helps Us Preserve -- Even In Pain -- The Authentic Relationship.

Judging Others Makes Us Blind, Whereas Love Is Illuminating. By Judging Others We Blind Ourselves To Our Own Evil And To The Grace Which Others Are Just As Entitled To As We Are.

Judging Yourself

If I Sit Next To A Madman As He Drives A Car Into A Group Of Innocent Bystanders, I Can't, As A Christian, Simply Wait For The Catastrophe, Then Comfort The Wounded And Bury The Dead. I Must Try To Wrestle The Steering Wheel Out Of The Hands Of The Driver.

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.

A King Who Dies On The Cross Must Be The King Of A Rather Strange Kingdom.

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

And After Death Something New Begins, Over Which All The Powers Of The World Of Death Can Have No More Control.

There Remains An Experience Of Incomparable Value.

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.

I Saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, Before Taking Off His Prison Garb, Kneeling On The Floor Praying Fervently To His God. I Was Most Deeply Moved By The Way This Lovable Man Prayed, So Devout And So Certain That God Heard His Prayer. At The Place Of Execution, He Again Said A Prayer And Then Climbed The Steps To The Gallows, Brave And Composed. His Death Ensued In A Few Seconds. In The Almost 50 Years That I Have Worked As A Doctor, I Have Hardly Ever Seen A Man Die So Entirely Submissive To The Will Of God.

Nothing Is So At Odds With Prayer As Vanity.

Political Action Means Taking On Responsibility. This Cannot Happen Without Power. Power Is To Serve Responsibility.

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.

Gratitude Changes The Pangs Of Memory Into A Tranquil Joy.

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

The Great Masquerade Of Evil Has Played Havoc With All Our Ethical Concepts. For Evil To Appear Disguised As Light, Charity, Historical Necessity, Or Social Justice Is Quite Bewildering To Anyone Brought Up On Our Traditional Ethical Concepts, While For The Christian Who Bases His Life On The Bible, It Merely Confirms The Fundamental Wickedness Of Evil.

What We Shall Need Is Not Geniuses, Or Cynics, Or Misanthropes, Or Clever Tacticians, But Plain, Honest, Straghtforward Men.

Do Not Try To Make The Bible Relevant. Its Relevance Is Axiomatic.

It Is Only Because He Became Like Us That We Can Become Like Him.

Spiritual Wisdom

The Psalter Is The Prayer Book Of Jesus Christ In The Truest Sense Of The Word. He Prayed The Psalter And Now It Has Become His Prayer For All Time...we Understand How The Psalter Can Be Prayer To God And Yet God's Own Word, Precisely Because Here We Encounter The Praying Christ...because Those Who Pray The Psalms Are Joining In With The Prayer Of Jesus Christ, Their Prayer Reaches The Ears Of God. Christ Has Become Their Intercessor.

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.

How Can God Entrust Great Things To One Who Will Not Thankfully Receive From Him The Little Things?

Christian Thanksgiving

Only Those Who Put Tomorrow Completely Into God's Hand And Receive Fully Today What They Need For Their Lives Are Really Secure.

We Must Be Ready To Allow Ourselves To Be Interrupted By God, Who Will Thwart Our Plans And Frustrate Our Ways Time And Again, Even Daily, By Sending People Across Our Path With Their Demands And Requests. We Can, Then, Pass Them By, Preoccupied With Our Important Daily Tasks, Just As The Priest-perhaps Reading The Bible-passed By The Man Who Had Fallen Among Robbers. When We Do That, We Pass By The Visible Sign Of The Cross Raised In Our Lives To Show Us That God’s Way, And Not Our Own, Is What Counts.

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.

The 'polymath' Had Already Died Out By The Close Of The Eighteenth Century, And In The Following Century Intensive Education Replaced Extensive, So That By The End Of It The Specialist Had Evolved. The Consequence Is That Today Everyone Is A Mere Technician, Even The Artist.

It Is Remarkable How I Am Never Quite Clear About The Motives For Any Of My Decisions. Is That A Sign Of Confusion Or Inner Dishonesty Or Is It A Sign That We Are Guided Without Our Knowing Or Is It Both ...the Reasons One Gives For An Action To Others And To One's Self Are Certainly Inadequate. One Can Give A Reason For Everything. In The Last Resort One Acts From A Level Which Remains Hidden From Us. So One Can Only Ask God To Judge Us And To Forgive Us.... At The End Of The Day I Can Only Ask God To Give A Merciful Judgement On Today And All Its Decisions. It Is Now In His Hand.

In Jesus, The Service Of God And The Service Of The Least Of The Brethren Were One.

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

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.

We Pray For The Big Things And Forget To Give Thanks For The Ordinary, Small (and Yet Really Not Small) Gifts.

The Essence Of Optimism Is That It Takes No Account Of The Present, But It Is A Source Of Inspiration, Of Vitality And Hope Where Others Have Resigned; It Enables A Man To Hold His Head High, To Claim The Future For Himself And Not To Abandon It To His Enemy.

Our Community With One Another Consists Solely In What Christ Has Done To Each Of Us.

Those Who Love Their Dream Of A Christian Community More Than The Christian Community Itself Become Destroyers Of That Christian Community Even Though Their Personal Intentions May Be Ever So Honest, Earnest, And Sacrificial.

Cheap Grace Is Grace Without Discipleship, Grace Without The Cross, Grace Without Jesus Christ, Living And Incarnate.

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.

The Church ... Is Not Just To Bandage The Victims Under The Wheel, But To Put A Spoke In The Wheel Itself.

The Richness Of God’s Word Ought To Determine Our Prayer, Not The Poverty Of Our Heart.

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?

There Remains An Experience Of Incomparable Value . . . To See The Great Events Of World History From Below; From The Perspective Of The Outcast, The Suspects, The Maltreated, The Powerless, The Oppressed, The Reviled ---- In Short, From The Perspective Of Those Who Suffer . . . To Look With New Eyes On Matters Great And Small.

The Christian Needs Another Christian Who Speaks God's Word To Him. He Needs Him Again And Again When He Becomes Uncertain And Discouraged, For By Himself He Cannot Help Himself Without Belying The Truth.

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.

Desires Repeatedly Mastered For The Sake Of Present Duty Make Us Richer. Lack Of Desire Is Poverty.

If You Want My Goodness To Stay With You Then Serve Your Neighbour, For In Him God Comes To You Himself; Such A Man Sees In His Neighbour The Material And Spiritual Need He Is Called To Meet.

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

It Is The Characteristic Excellence Of The Strong Man That He Can Bring Momentous Issues To The Fore And Make A Decision About Them. The Weak Are Always Forced To Decide Between Alternatives They Have Not Chosen Themselves.

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

Cheap Grace Is Grace Without Discipleship.

Christian Discipleship

As God Adds His 'yes' To Your 'yes,' As He Confirms Your Will With His Will, And As He Allows You, And Approves Of, Your Triumph And Rejoicing And Pride, He Makes You At The Same Time Instruments Of His Will And Purpose Both For Yourselves And For Others. In His Unfathomable Condescension God Does Add His 'yes' To Yours; But By Doing So, He Creates Out Of Your Love Something Quite New - The Holy Estate Of Matrimony.

God Has Willed That We Should Seek And Find God's Living Word In The Testimony Of Other Christians, In The Mouths Of Human Beings.

A Prison Cell, In Which One Waits, Hopes...and Is Completely Dependent On The Fact That The Door Of Freedom Has To Be Opened From The Outside, Is Not A Bad Picture Of Advent.

There Is No Worse Sin Than Unbelief Toward The Gospel.

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 .

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

The Deceit, The Lie Of The Devil Consists Of This, That He Wishes To Make Man Believe That He Can Live Without God's Word. Thus He Dangles Before Man's Fantasy A Kingdom Of Faith, Of Power, And Of Peace, Into Which Only He Can Enter Who Consents To The Temptations; And Conceals From Men That He, As The Devil, Is The Most Unfortunate And Unhappy Of Beings, Since He Is Finally And Eternally Rejected By God.

Consequently There Is A Need For Spiritual Vitality. What Protection Is There Against The Danger Of Organisation? Man Is Once More Faced With The Problem Of Himself. He Can Cope With Every Danger Except The Danger Of Human Nature Itself. In The Last Resort It All Turns Upon Man.

As Christ Bore And Received Us As Sinners So We In His Fellowship May Bear And Receive Sinners Into The Fellowship Of Christ Through The Forgiving Of Sins.

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.

Every Christian Must Be Fully Christian By Bringing God Into His Whole Life, Not Merely Into Some Spiritual Realm.

Man No Longer Lives In The Beginning--he Has Lost The Beginning. Now He Finds He Is In The Middle, Knowing Neither The End Nor The Beginning, And Yet Knowing That He Is In The Middle, Coming From The Beginning And Going Towards The End. He Sees That His Life Is Determined By These Two Facets, Of Which He Knows Only That He Does Not Know Them

Telling The Truth ... Is Not Solely A Matter Of Moral Character; It Is Also A Matter Of Correct Appreciation Of Real Situations And Of Serious Reflection Upon Them.

I Believe That God Both Wills And Is Able To Bring Good Out Of Everything, Even The Worst... I Believe That Even Our Mistakes And Wrongdoing Are Not Fruitless.

In Me There Is Darkness, But With You There Is Light; I Am Lonely, But You Do Not Leave Me; I Am Feeble In Heart, But With You There Is Help; I Am Restless, But With You There Is Peace. In Me There Is Bitterness, But With You There Is Patience; I Do Not Understand Your Ways, But You Know The Way For Me.” “lord Jesus Christ, You Were Poor And In Distress, A Captive And Forsaken As I Am. You Know All Man’s Troubles; You Abide With Me When All Men Fail Me; You Remember And Seek Me; It Is Your Will That I Should Know You And Turn To You. Lord, I Hear Your Call And Follow; Help Me.

Discipleship Never Consists In This Or That Specific Action: It Is Always A Decision, Either For Or Against Jesus Christ.

If We Look More Closely, We See That Any Violent Display Of Power, Whether Political Or Religious, Produces An Outburst Of Folly In A Large Part Of Mankind; Indeed, This Seems Actually To Be A Psychological And Sociological Law: The Power Of Some Needs The Folly Of Others. It Is Not That Certain Human Capacities, Intellectual Capacities For Instance, Become Stunted Of Destroyed, But Rather That The Upsurge Of Power Makes Such An Overwhelming Impression That Men Are Deprived Of Their Independent Judgment, And...give Up Trying To Assess The New State Of Affairs For Themselves.

Christianity Preaches The Infinite Worth Of That Which Is Seemingly Worthless And The Infinite Worthlessness Of That Which Is Seemingly So Valued.

The Church Is The Church Only When It Exists For Others...not Dominating, But Helping And Serving. It Must Tell Men Of Every Calling What It Means To Live For Christ, To Exist For Others.

A Christian Fellowship Lives And Exists By The Intercession Of Its Members For One Another, Or It Collapses.

Only Those Who Obey Can Believe, And Only Those Who Believe Can Obey.

Being Free Means "being Free For The Other," Because The Other Has Bound Me To Him. Only In Relationship With The Other Am I Free

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

Certainly One Must Try Everything, But Only To Become More Certain What God's Way Is.

The Celebration Of Advent Is Possible Only To Those Who Are Troubled In Soul, Who Know Themselves To Be Poor And Imperfect, And Who Look Forward To Something Greater To Come.

Christian Marriage Is Marked By Discipline And Self-denial...c Hristianity Does Not Therefore Depreciate Marriage, It Sanctifies It.

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.

The Way To Misuse Our Possessions Is To Use Them As An Insurance Against The Morrow. Anxiety Is Always Directed To The Morrow, Whereas Goods Are In The Strictest Sense Meant To Be Used Only For To-day.

But To Procrastinate And Prevaricate Simply Because You're Afraid Of Erring, When Others - I Mean Our Brethren In Germany - Must Make Infinitely More Difficult Decisions Every Day, Seems To Me Almost To Run Counter To Love. To Delay Or Fail To Make Decisions May Be More Sinful Than To Make Wrong Decisions Out Of Faith And Love.

The Best-informed Man Is Not Necessarily The Wisest. Indeed There Is A Danger That Precisely In The Multiplicity Of His Knowledge He Will Lose Sight Of What Is Essential. But On The Other Hand, Knowledge Of An Apparently Trivial Detail Quite Often Makes It Possible To See Into The Depth Of Things. And So The Wise Man Will Seek To Acquire The Best Possible Knowledge About Events, But Always Without Becoming Dependent Upon This Knowledge. To Recognize The Significant In The Factual Is Wisdom.

We Are Torn Out Of Our Own Existence And Set Down In The Midst Of The Holy History Of God On Earth. There God Dealt With Us, And There He Still Deals With Us, Our Needs And Our Sins, In Judgment And Grace.

The Cross Is God's Truth About Us, And Therefore It Is The Only Power Thatcanmakeustruthful.whenwe Know The Cross We Are No Longer Afraid Of The Truth.

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.

Things Do Exist That Are Worth Standing Up For Without Compromise. To Me It Seems That Peace And Social Justice Are Such Things, As Is Christ Himself.

The Lord Stands Above The New Day, For God Has Made It. All Restlessness, All Worry, And Anxiety Flee Before Him.

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.

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

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.

Love Asks Nothing In Return, But Seeks Those Who Need It. And Who Needs Our Love More Than Those Who Are Consumed With Hatred And Are Utterly Devoid Of Love.

The Lord Confers Great Honor On His Servants When He Brings Them Suffering.

Trending Author

John Maynard Keynes

Megalyn Echikunwoke

Category