Once a man has truly experienced the mercy of God in his life he will henceforth aspire only to serve.
The gift of Christ is not the Christian religion, but the grace and love of God which culminate in the cross.
The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.
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.
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.
time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.
Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.
Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.
The church has an unconditional obligation to the victims of any ordering society, even if they do not belong to the Christian community.
Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
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.
Pain is a holy angel who shows us treasures that would otherwise remain forever hidden; through him men and women have become greater than through all the joys of the world. It must be so and I tell myself this in my present situation over and over again. The pain of suffering and of longing, which can often be felt even physically, must be there, and we cannot and need not talk it away. But it needs to be overcome every time, and thus there is an even holier angel than the one of pain; that is, the one of joy in God.
One's task is not to turn the world upside down, but to do what is necessary at the given place and with a due consideration of reality.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On Sunday 8 April 1945, he had just finished conducting a service of worship at Schoenberg, when two soldiers came took him away. As he left, he said to another prisoner, This is the end - but for me, the beginning - of life. He was hanged the next day, less than a week before the Allies reached the camp.
Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.
We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him.
The Lord confers great honor on his servants when he brings them suffering.
Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
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.
Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.
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