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Nothing can be known either of God or man until God has become man in Jesus Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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
A God who let us prove his existence would be an idol.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence God Idol
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

Comfortable Desire Difficult Feeling Home People
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

Grace Judgement Ourselves
Strict exercise of self-control is an essential feature of the Christian’s life.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Control Exercise Life
Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Darkness Eyes God Leaving Light Ourselves
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Existence Help Live Man
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

Beyond Expression Human Ourselves Sing Talk
Advent creates people, new people.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Creation One Liner People
Discipleship is not an offer that man makes to Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Discipline God Man
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Achievement Easy Gratitude Hard Help Important Life Rich
There can be no real attachment to the given creation, no genuine responsibility in the world, unless we recognize the breach which already separates us from it.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Attachment Creation Reality Responsibility World
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Death Man Spiritual
One act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Act Worth
Not hero worship, but intimacy with Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Worship
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Break Death Defeat Human Life Light Morning Remember Rise Sin
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Action Responsibility
We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Forget Gift Ordinary Prayer Thankful
Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Desire Himself Oneself Person
Nothing can be known either of God or man until God has become man in Jesus Christ.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

God Man Religious
The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Defeat Enemy Expression God Law Love Man Willing
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Love Marriage Yourself
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

Existence God History Judgement Need Sin
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Direction Run Wrong Yourself
Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Compassionate Path Sin
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.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

Believe Hope Religious Yourself
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

Nothing can be known either of God or man until God has become man in Jesus Christ.

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Nothing can be known either of God or man until God has become man in Jesus Christ.

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