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The cross is not the terrible end to an otherwise God-fearing and happy life, but it meets us at the beginning of our communion with Christ. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Age: 39 †
Born: 1906
Born: February 4
Died: 1945
Died: April 8
Pastor
Philosopher
Poet
Resistance Fighter
Theologian
Breslau
Bonhoeffer
Terrible
Fearing
Dies
Meets
Happy
Communion
Christ
Calls
Ends
Cross
Come
Crosses
Men
Otherwise
Life
Beginning
Bids

More quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

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The Lord stands above the new day, for God has made it. All restlessness, all worry, and anxiety flee before him.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Whenever Christ calls us, His call leads us to death.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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
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The devil doesn't fill us with hatred for God, but with forgetfulness of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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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. The richness of the Word of God ought to determine our prayer, not the poverty of our heart.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The right way to pray is to stretch out our hands and ask of One who we know has the heart of a Father.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Desires to which we cling closely can easily prevent us from being what we ought to be and can be and on the other hand, desires repeatedly mastered for the sake of present duty make us richer.Lack of desire is poverty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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The responsible person seeks to make his whole life a response to the question and call of God.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Things do exist that are worth standing up for without compromise. To me it seems that peace and social justice are such things, as is Christ himself.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Nothing can fill the gap when we are away from those we love, and it would be wrong to try to find anything.....It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap he does not fill it, but keeps it empty so that our communion with another may be kept alive, even at the cost of pain.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Whenever the Psalter is abandoned, an incomparable treasure is lost to the Christian church. With its recovery will come unexpected power.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. … So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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And if we ask how are we to know where our hearts are, the answer is just as simple - everything which hinders us from loving God above all things and acts as a barrier between ourselves and our obedience to Jesus is our treasure, and the place where our heart is.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Human love has little regard for the truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
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Temptations which accompany the working day will be conquered on the basis of the morning breakthrough to God. Decisions, demanded by work, become easier and simpler where they are made not in the fear of men, but only in the sight of God. He wants to give us today the power which we need for our work.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer