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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFEROnly he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes.
More Dietrich Bonhoeffer Quotes
-
-
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
One act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to each of us.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
[Christ] is the Mediator, not only between God and man, but between man and man, between man and reality.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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 -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
While it is good that we seek to know the Holy One, it is probably not so good to presume that we ever complete the task.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Fruit is always the miraculous, the created; it is never the result of willing, but always a growth. The fruit of the Spirit is a gift of God, and only He can produce it. They who bear it know as little about it as the tree knows of its fruit. They know only the power of Him on whom their life depends.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER -
Any honours that come our way are only stolen from him to whom alone they really belong, the Lord who sent us.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER