Thus the call to follow Christ always means a call to share the work of forgiving men their sins. Forgiveness is the Christlike suffering which it is the Christian’s duty to bear.
Neighbourliness is not a quality in other people, it is simply their claim on ourselves.
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.
Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
Then fear will grow pale and fade away, and you will be free, through your faith in our strong and living Savior, Jesus Christ.
Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been committed to them by Him who is Himself the great listener and whose work they should share. We should listen with the ears of God that we may speak the Word of God.
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.
Why do Christians sing when they are together? The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.
Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy’s hatred, the greater his need of love.
Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life.
The Church knows nothing of a sacredness of war. The Church which prays’Our Father’asks God only for peace.
Possessions are not God’s blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.
Love asks nothing in return, but seeks those who need it. And who needs our love more than those who are consumed with hatred and are utterly devoid of love.
We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God.
The future and the hope for the middle class church lies in the renewal of its lifeblood, which is only possible if the church succeeds in winning the working class.
There is not a place to which the Christian can withdraw from the world, whether it be outwardly or in the sphere of the inner life. Any attempt to escape from the world must sooner or later be paid for with a sinful surrender to the world.
What we shall need is not geniuses, or cynics, or misanthropes, or clever tacticians, but plain, honest, straghtforward men.
When we come to a clearer and more sober estimate of our own limitations and responsibilities, that makes it possible more genuinely to love our neighbor.
It is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith.
The Psalter is the great school of prayer.