“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise. One would have thought a saint would have been the first soul purchased over the counter of Calvary by the red coins of Redemption, but in the Divine plan it was a thief who was the escort of the King of kings into Paradise. If Our Lord had come merely as a teacher, the thief would never have asked for forgiveness. But since the thief s request touched the reason of His coming to earth, namely, to save souls, the thief heard the immediate answer: I promise thee, this day thou shalt be With Me in Paradise (Luke 23:43) It was the thief s last prayer, perhaps even his first. He knocked once, sought once, asked once, dared everything, and found everything. When even the disciples were doubting and only one was present at the Cross, the thief owned and acknowledged Him as Saviour.”
“Could God have justified Himself before human history, so full of suffering, without placing Christ s Cross at the center of that history? . . . But God, who besides being Omnipotence is Wisdom and--to repeat once again--Love, desires to justify Himself to mankind. He is not the Absolute that remains outside of the world, indifferent to human suffering. he is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a God who shares man s lot and participates in his destiny.”
“If you want to be an honorable man, then be what you pretend to be.”
“The first and foremost reality is that suffering and death are not only enemies of life, but a means of reminding us of life s twin realities, love and hate.”
“Don t bring Hollywood; bring Christ. Don t bring power. Don t bring just your money. Bring love. Bring the kingdom.”
“In His free grace, God is for man in every respect; He surrounds man from all sides. He is man s Lord who is before him, above him, after him, and thence also with him in history, the locus of man s existence. Despite man s insignificance, God is with him as his Creator who intended and made mankind to be very good. Despite man s sin, God is with him, the One who was in Jesus Christ reconciling the world, drawing man unto Himself in merciful judgment. Man s evil past is not merely crossed out because of its irrelevancy. Rather, it is in the good care of God. Despite man s life in the flesh, corrupt and ephemeral, God is with him. The victor in Christ is here and now present through His Spirit, man s strength, companion, and comfort. Despite man s death God is with him, meeting him as redeemer and perfecter at the threshold of the future to show him the totality of existence in the true light in which the eyes of God beheld it from the beginning and will behold it evermore. In what He is for man and does for man, God ushers in the history leading to the ultimate salvation of man.”
“In Jesus Christ there is no isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant MUTUALLY contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them. Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true GOD, MAN S loyal partner, and as true MAN, GOD S. He is the Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant exalted to communion with God.”
“Christ is born, my wise Solomon, my wretched pen-pusher! Don´t go picking things over with a needle! Is He born or isn´t He? Of course He is born, don´t be daft. If you take a magnifying glass and look at your drinking water-an engineer told me this, one day – you´ll see, he said, the water´s full of little worms you couldn´t see with your naked eye. You´ll see the worms and you won´t drink. You won´t drink and you´ll curl up with thirst. Smash your glass, boss, and the little worms´ll vanish and you can drink and be refreshed!”
“Christ did not descend from the cross except into the grave. And why not otherwise? Wouldn’t it have put fine comical expressions on the faces of the scribes and chief priests and the soldiers if at that moment He had come down in power and glory? Why didn’t He do it? Why hasn’t He done it at any one of a thousand good times between then and now? I knew the answer. I knew it a long time before I could admit it, for all the suffering of the world is in it. He didn’t, He hasn’t, because from the moment He did, He would be the absolute tyrant of the world and we would be His slaves. Even those who hated Him and hated one another and hated their own souls would have to believe in Him then. From that moment the possibility that we might be bound to Him and He to us and us to one another by love forever would be ended. And so, I thought, He must forebear to reveal His power and glory by presenting Himself as Himself, and must be present only in the ordinary miracle of the existence of His creatures. Those who wish to see Him must see Him in the poor, the hungry, the hurt, the wordless creatures, the groaning and travailing beautiful world.”
“Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged.”
“Love well, laugh often and live well for Christ.”
“In its essence, faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is.”
“Most people in the world are Christ lovers. And then there are Christ haters. But all of them are fixated on Christ, and he perpetuates for ever.”
“Only God can give us a selfless love for others, as the Holy Spirit changes us from within. This is one reason we must receive Christ, for apart from His Spirit we can never be freed from the chains of selfishness, jealousy, and indifference. Will others see Christ s love in your life today?”
“The primary purpose of a home is to reflect and to distribute the love of Christ. Anything that usurps that is idolatrous.”
“There was only one reality, and Christ was Lord over all of it, or none.”
“Faith never makes herself her own plea, she rests all her argument upon the blood of Christ.”