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By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.

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
Self
Absolutes
Renouncing
Absolute
Affirms
Overcoming
Adherence
Freedom
Willingly
Jesus
Defence
Evil
Overcome
Christian
Ego
Power
Tyranny
Exclusiveness

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If you want my goodness to stay with you then serve your neighbour, for in him God comes to you himself such a man sees in his neighbour the material and spiritual need he is called to meet.
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And we simply cannot be constant with the fact that God’s cause is not always the successful one, that we really could be “unsuccessful” and yet be on the right road. But this is where we find out whether we have begun in faith or in a burst of enthusiasm.
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Prayer is the supreme instance of the hidden character of the Christian life.
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We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.
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Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this. Whether it is a brief, single encounter or the daily fellowship of years, Christian community is only this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Who can really be faithful in great things if he has not learned to be faithful in the things of daily life?
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One who loves his community destroys community one who loves its members builds community.
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Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which he entrusts to us.
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It is much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.
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Man seeks, in his manhood, not orders, not laws and peremptory dogmas, but counsel from one who is earnest in goodness and faithful in friendship, making man free.
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While we exert ourselves to grow beyond our humanity, to leave the human behind us, God becomes human and we must recognize that God wills that we be human, real human beings. While we distinguish between pious and godless, good and evil, noble and base, God loves real people without distinction.
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Monastic life thus became a living protest against the secularization of Christianity, against the cheapening of grace.
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Not everyone can wait: neither the sated nor the satisfied nor those without respect can wait. The only ones who can wait are people who carry restlessness around with them.
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A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him.
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When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly.
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Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.
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Christianity means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. No Christian community is more or less than this.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer