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Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes - Page 16

All Quotes Achievement Advent Anxiety Atheism Being Thankful Character Children Christ Christianity Christmas Church Community Desire Devil Discipleship Discipline Earth Evil Faith Giving God Goodness Grace Gratitude Hate Hatred Heart Home Honor Humanity Inspiration Inspirational Jesus Joy Judging Judging Others Life Listening Love Lying Marriage Mercy Morning Obedience Pain Past Peace Poverty Prayer Reality Rejection Religion Responsibility Running Sacrifice Salvation Sanctification Silence Sin Son Soul Struggle Suffering Temptation Thankfulness Today Waiting War Worship
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

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Son, Unique, Men

If the heart is devoted to the mirage of the world, to the creature instead of the Creator, the disciple is lost... However urgently Jesus may call us, His call fails to find access to our hearts... for they have already been given to another.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Heart, Mirages
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility, for Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Enemy, Cherish
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.96, SCM Press

With an abstract idea it is possible to enter into a relation of formal knowledge, to become enthusiastic about it, and perhaps even to put it into practice; but it can never be followed in personal obedience. Christianity without the living Christ is inevitably Christianity without discipleship, and Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Practice, Ideas, Christianity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.17, SCM Press

The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history... there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
War, Israel, Enemy
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.96, SCM Press

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Morning, Prayer, Work

The consciousness of being borne up by a spiritual tradition that goes back for centuries gives one a feeling of confidence and security in the face of all passing strains and stresses.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Spiritual, Stress, Giving
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

The life of discipleship is not the hero-worship we would pay to a good master, but obedience to the Son of God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Hero, Son, Pay
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.32, SCM Press

In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Men, Firsts, Steps
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.22, SCM Press

It is God's earth out of which man is taken. From it he has his body. His body belongs to his essential being. Man's body is not his prison, his shell his exterior, but man himself. Man does not "have" a body; he does not "have" a soul; rather he "is" body and soul. Man in the beginning is really his body. He is one. He is his body, as Christ is completely his body, as the Church is the body of Christ

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Taken, Men, Soul
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1983). “The martyred Christian: 160 readings from Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, Scribner

Advent creates people, new people.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Healing, People, Advent
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012). “God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas”, p.40, Westminster John Knox Press

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Community, Christ
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Samuel Wells (2015). “Life Together”, p.14, SCM Press

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God, Attitude, Holiday
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1954). “Life Togehter”

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Mean, Sanctification
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.212, SCM Press

In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Sacrifice, Years, Self
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2011). “Letters Papers from Prison”, p.9, Simon and Schuster

Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God, Christian, Respect
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.150, SCM Press

The essence of chastity is not the suppression of lust, but the total orientation of one's life towards a goal. Without such a goal, chastity is bound to become ridiculous. Chastity is the sine qua non of lucidity and concentration.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Essence, Goal, Lust
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1967). “Letters and Papers from Prison”

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Jesus, Blessed, Sacrifice
"The Cost of Discipleship".

The proclamation of grace has its limits. Grace may not be proclaimed to anyone who does not recognize or distinguish or desire it... The world upon whom grace is thrust as a bargain will grow tired of it, and it will not only trample upon the Holy, but also will tear apart those who force it on them.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Tired, Grace, Tears
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1966). “The Way to Freedom: 1935-1939, from the Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer”, New York : Harper & Row

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Dream, Broken

Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is not inner discord between the private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Religious, Jesus
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2015). “The Cost of Discipleship”, p.97, SCM Press

Man has learned to cope with all questions of importance without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Men, Atheism, Hypothesis

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.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Lying, Winning, Class

The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays'Our Father'asks God only for peace.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Father, War, Church

When one person is struck by the Word, he speaks it to others. God has willed that we should seek and find His living Word in the witness of a brother, in the mouth of man. Therefore, the Christian needs another Christian who speaks God’s Word to him. The Christ in his own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of his brother; his own heart is uncertain, his brother’s is sure.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christian, Brother, Heart

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