Quotes About Devotion

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake.

Genuine love is always self-forgetful in the true sense of the word.

The more I begin to love the commandments of God in creation and word, the more present they will be for me in every hour.

If we are to pray aright, perhaps it is quite necessary that we pray contrary to our own heart. Not what we want to pray is important, but what God wants us to pray.

To follow Jesus means self-renunciation and absolute adherence to him, and therefore a will dominated by lust can never be allowed to do what it likes.

The cross is not the suffering tied to being natural existence, but the suffering tied to being Christians. The cross is never simply a matter of suffering, but a matter of suffering and rejection, and even, strictly speaking, rejection for the sake of Jesus Christ, not for the sake of some other arbitrary behavior or confession.

Why do I meditate? Because I am a Christian. Therefore, every day in which I do not penetrate more deeply into the knowledge of God's Word in Holy Scripture is a lost day for me. I can only move forward with certainty upon the firm ground of the Word of God. And, as a Christian, I learn to know the Holy Scripture in no other way than by hearing the Word preached and by prayerful meditation.

With their ever-available loving hearts, they bow before God and bend down under all this pain and are lower than all the other creatures on earth. Pride is rare among them.3 Mechthild of Magdeburg, "The Flowing Light of the Godhead

Praying certainly does not mean simply pouring out one's heart. It means, rather, finding the way to and speaking with God, whether the heart is full or empty. No one can do that on one's own. For that one needs Jesus Christ.

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.

Self-denial means knowing only Christ, no longer knowing oneself. It means no longer seeing oneself, only him who is going ahead, no longer seeing the way which is too difficult for us. Self-denial says only: he is going ahead; hold fast to him.

Self-denial means knowing only Christ, and no longer oneself. It means seeing only Christ, who goes ahead of us, and no longer the path that is too difficult for us… . Self-denial is saying only: He goes ahead of us; hold fast to him.

All that the follower of Jesus has to do is to make sure that his obedience, following and love are entirely spontaneous and unpremeditated.

To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is: "He leads the way, keep close to him.

What is love?" Love is the reconciliation of man with God in Jesus Christ.

So the call to discipleship is a commitment solely to the person of Jesus Christ, a breaking through of all legalisms by the grace of him who calls.

Had Levi stayed at his post, Jesus might have been his present help in trouble, but not the Lord of his whole life. In other words Levi would never have learnt to believe.

In religion, as in art and science, there are—in addition to times of great excitement—times of sober work and practice. Interaction with God must be practiced; otherwise we will not find the right tone, the right word, the right language, when he surprises us. We must learn God's language, laboriously learn it. And we must work at it, so that we will be able to talk with him.

Yet neither father nor mother, neither wife nor child, neither nationality nor tradition, can protect a man at the moment of his call. It is Christ's will that he should be thus isolated, and that he should fix his eyes solely upon him.

The Psalter occupies a unique place in the Holy Scriptures. It is God's Word and, with few exceptions, the prayer of men as well. How are we to understand this? How can God's Word be at the same time prayer to God?

Work is only an instrument in the hand of God for the purification of Christians from all self-centeredness and self-seeking. The work of the world can be done only where a person forgets himself, where he loses himself in a cause...

No, God and the world, God and its goods are incompatible, because the world and its goods make a bid for our hearts, and only when they have won them do they become what they really are. That is how they thrive, and that is why they are incompatible with allegiance to God. Our hearts have room only for one all-embracing devotion, and we can only cleave to one Lord.

g. What does it mean to love God?[444] Loving God means giving him everything that belongs to me; it means wishing nothing for myself; it means asking his will before everything you do;[445] it means gladly thinking about him, praying to him, gladly hearing and reading his word.

1) Why do I meditate?[102] Because I am a Christian and because for that very reason every day is lost to me in which I have not deepened my knowledge of God's word in Holy Scripture. It is only on the firm basis of God's word that I can take certain steps. As a Christian, however, it is only through hearing the sermon and through prayerful meditation that I come to know Holy Scripture.