God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.
God does not love some ideal person, but rather human beings just as we are, not some ideal world, but rather the real world.
He who fears the face of God does not fear the face of man. He who fears the face of man does not fear the face of God.
The deep meaning of the cross of Christ is that there is no suffering on earth that is not borne by God.
I need the Christ that is in you, and you need the Christ that is in me.
Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?
Must the Christian go around looking for a cross to bear, seeking to suffer? No, insisted Bonhoeffer. Opportunities for bearing crosses will occur along life's way and all that is required is the willingness to act when the time comes. The needs of the neighbor, especially those of the weak and downtrodden, the victimized and the persecuted, the ill and the lonely, will become abundantly evident.
The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.
God turns toward the very places from which humans turn away.
Before Jesus leads His disciples into suffering, humiliation, disgrace, and disdain, He summons them and shows Himself to them as the Lord in God's glory.
The devil doesn't fill us with hatred for God, but with forgetfulness of God.
A righteous person is one who lives for the next generation.
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.
So the fool, as distinct from the scoundrel, is completely self- satisfied; in fact, he can easily become dangerous, as it does not take much to make him aggressive. A fool must therefore be treated more cautiously than a scoundrel.
If we look more closely, we see that any violent display of power, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind; indeed, this seems actually to be a psychological and sociological law: the power of some needs the folly of others. It is not that certain human capacities, intellectual capacities for instance, become stunted of destroyed, but rather that the upsurge of power makes such an overwhelming impression that men are deprived of their independent judgment, and...give up trying to assess the new state of affairs for themselves.
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.
Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
Only those who obey can believe, and only those who believe can obey.
Earthly goods are given to be used, not to be collected.... Hoarding is idolatry.
The word of cheap grace has been the ruin of more Christians than any commandment of works.
Judgement is the forbidden objectivization of the other person which destroys single-minded love. I am not forbidden to have my own thoughts about the other person, to realize his shortcomings, but only to the extent that it offers to me an occasion for forgiveness and unconditional love, as Jesus proves to me.
The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.
Wherever there are sinners, the weak, the sorrowful, the poor in the world, that is where God goes.
I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that is it only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith. By this-worldliness I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures. In so doing we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world. That, I think, is faith.
There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment. Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God. Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
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