Quotes About Spirituality

Cheap grace therefore amounts to a denial of the living Word of God, in fact, a denial of the Incarnation of the Word of God. Cheap

Prayer does not mean simply to pour out one's heart. It means rather to find the way to God and to speak with him, whether the heart is full or empty. No man can do that by himself. For that he needs Jesus Christ.

The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. Those who take refuge in community while fleeing from themselves are misusing it to indulge in empty talk and distraction, no matter how spiritual this idle talk and distraction may appear.

Without God, all seeing and perceiving of things and laws become abstraction, a separation from both origin and goal.

Just as Christians should not be constantly feeling the pulse of their spiritual life, so too the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be continually taking its temperature.

There is no fulfilment of the law apart from communion with God, and no communion with God apart from fulfilment of the law.

The existence of any Christian communal life essentially depends on whether or not it succeeds at the right time in promoting the ability to distinguish between a human ideal and God's reality, between spiritual and emotional community.

Even the most personal prayer no longer belongs to the individual, but to the church that gave birth to this person and through which this individual lives.

This cheap grace has been no less disastrous to our own spiritual lives. Instead of opening up the way to Christ it has closed it. Instead of calling us to follow Christ, it has hardened us in our disobedience.

Christliche Bruderschaft ist nicht ein Ideal, das wir zu verwirklichen hätten, sondern es ist eine von Gott in Christus geschaffene Wirklichkeit, an der wir teilhaben dürfen:

When a man gets angry with his brother and swears at him, when he publicly insults or slanders him, he is guilty of murder and forfeits his relation to God. He erects a barrier not only between himself and his brother, but also between himself and God.

To live in the light of the resurrection - that is what Easter means

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.

When God opens our eyes for his word, we see into a world of miracles.

It hurts body and soul that no day passes without the name of God being doubted and blasphemed.

Those who have found God in the cross of Jesus Christ know how wonderfully God hides himself in this world

do not believe in people or in the good in people that ultimately must triumph; they also do not believe in the church in its human power. Rather, believers believe solely in God

Nicht was wir gerade beten wollen, ist wichtig, sondern worum Gott von uns gebeten sein will. Wenn wir auf uns allein gestellt wären, so würden wir wohl auch vom Vaterunser oft nur die vierte Bitte beten. Aber Gott will es anders. Nicht die Armut unseres Herzens, sondern der Reichtum des Wortes Gottes soll unser Gebet bestimmen.

We say that religion is a matter of mood: we must wait until the mood strikes us. And then we often wait for years —perhaps until the end of our life—until we are once again in the mood to be religious. This idea is based on a great illusion. It is alll well and good to let religion be a matter of mood, but God is not a matter of mood. He is still present even when we are not in the mood to meet with him.

Aus einem Brief an die Finkenwalder Brüder Groß-Schlönwitz, 20. Dezember 1937 Gott will nicht tote Christen, sondern Christen, die ihrem Herrn leben. Hören wir dieses Wort nicht, so ist Weihnachten an uns vorübergegangen.

What may appear weak and insignificant to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as Christians should not be constantly feeling the pulse of their spiritual life, so too the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be continually taking its temperature.

The fact that he was ashamed when he was discovered praying was for Kant an argument against prayer. He failed to see that prayer by its very nature is a matter for the strictest privacy, and he failed to perceive the fundamental significance of shame for human existence.

Beten heißt ja nicht einfach das Herz ausschütten, sondern es heißt, mit seinem erfüllten oder auch leeren Herzen den Weg zu Gott finden und mit ihm zu reden. Das kann kein Mensch von sich aus, dazu braucht er Jesus Christus.

There is the question of resistance and of submission in the right place; that is, resistance to the devil is only possible in the fullest submission to the hand of God.