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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

How would you expect to find community while you intentionally withdraw from it at some point? The disobedient cannot believe; only the obedient believe.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe Community Expectation
In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Dare Man Mental Myself Presence Sick Sin
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Alone Grace Man Religion Right
The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Creation Destroy Dream Love Person
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 BONHOEFFER

God Human Ideal Love Pain Reality World
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

God Man People
Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Control Exercise Life
No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Enemy Greatness Love Ourselves Sacrifice
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?
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Appearance Myself Person Possible Recognition Serious Sin Worst
Neighbourliness is not a quality in other people, it is simply their claim on ourselves.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Ourselves People Quality Simplicity
Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Man
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Freedom Hope Oneself Photograph Prison Wait
A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence God Idol
Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Gift Grace Man
The task of pastoral ministry, above all else, is to arrange contingencies for an encounter with the divine.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Divine Job
Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Funny Serious

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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