"The man who is God's own Word, does not send forth His radiant light from afar, encountering the "darkness" of other men as a king, hero or sage; but the Light that "shines in the darkness" is an ordinary man and gives light to ordinary people. … The Word of God is where we ourselves are, not where we should perhaps like to be, on one of those heights to which by some luck and strong effort we might attain; He is where we really are, whether we are king or beggar, in our torn condition in which we who face death appear—in the "flesh.""
— Karl Barth
Source: Christmas (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1959), on John 1:14
Christmas, grace, judgment
Views: 571
"It is not so much that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world."
— Christopher J. H. Wright
Source: The Mission of God (2006)
Mission
Views: 571
"To men and women everywhere Jesus says, "Come unto me, and I will give you rest." The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and cease to pretend. It will take some courage at first, but the needed grace will come as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the strong Son of God Himself."
— A.W. Tozer
Source: The Pursuit of God, ch. 9 "Meekness and Rest"
Self, in power, subjugation
Views: 541
"In that way the first part is humility; the second, humility; the third, humility: and this I would continue to repeat as often as you might ask direction, not that there are no other instructions which may be given, but because, unless humility precede, accompany, and follow every good action which we perform, … pride wrests wholly from our hand any good work on which we are congratulating ourselves."
— Augustine
Source: Letter 118 (to Dioscorus), 22 (tr. J. G. Cunningham, NPNF I/1)
Humility, Pride
Views: 570
"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky."
— C.S. Lewis
Source: The Screwtape Letters, Letter XXIX
Courage, perseverance
Views: 565
"He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."
— C.S. Lewis
Source: The Screwtape Letters, Letter VIII (the demon Screwtape speaking; "the Enemy" is God)