欧宝娱乐

“La beaut茅 s茅duit la chair pour obtenir la permission de passer jusqu'脿 l'芒me.”
― Simone Weil, La Pesanteur et la Gr芒ce

“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.”
― Karl Barth, The Humanity of God

“The real difference in the believer who follows Christ and has mortified his will and died after the old man in Christ, is that he is more clearly aware than other men of the rebelliousness and perennial pride of the flesh, he is conscious of his sloth and self-indulgence and knows that his arrogance must be eradicated. Hence there is a need for daily self-discipline.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“But I was immobilized鈥攍ess by another鈥檚 static imposition than by my own static will. For the enemy had in thrall my power to choose, which he had used to make a chain for binding me. From bad choices an urge arises; and the urge, yielded to, becomes a compulsion; and the compulsion, unresisted, becomes a slavery鈥攅ach link in this process connected with the others, which is why I call it a chain鈥攁nd that chain had a tyrannical grip around me. The new will I felt stirring in me, a will to 'give you free worship' and enjoy what I yearned for, my God, my only reliable happiness, could not break away from the will made strong by long dominance. Two wills were mine, old and new, of the flesh, of the spirit, each warring on the other, and between their dissonances was my soul disintegrating.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“The flesh resists this daily humiliation, first by a frontal attack, and later by hiding itself under the words of the spirit (i.e. in the name of 'evangelical liberty'). We claim liberty from all legal compulsion, from self-martyrdom and mortification, and play this off against the proper evangelical use of discipline and asceticism; we thus excuse our self-indulgence and irregularity in prayer, in meditation and in our bodily life. But the contrast between our behavior and the word of Jesus is all too painfully evident. We forget that discipleship means estrangement from the world, and we forget the real joy and freedom which are the outcome of a devout rule of life. As soon as a Christian recognizes that he has failed in his service, that his readiness has become feeble, and that he has sinned against another's life and become guilty of another's guilt, that all his joy in God has vanished and that his capacity for prayer has quite gone, it is high time for him to launch an assault upon the flesh, and prepare for better service by fasting and prayer (Luke 2:37; 4:2: Mark 9:29; 1 Cor. 7:5).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“The temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carried nothing in himself which could have given the tempter a claim and power over him. But Christ bore in himself the whole burden of the flesh, under the curse, under condemnation; and yet his temptation was henceforth to bring help and salvation to all flesh.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies

“The believer caught between the flesh and Spirit is also caught between death and life. That is what happens when God intervenes in a human life. That intervention does not necessarily bring tranquility. In fact, it is more likely to bring tension and conflict. It is the life surrendered to the flesh which lacks inner conflict, for the decline through sin to death can be so easy. It is when the Spirit enters a life to contest the sway of sin and counter the weakness of the flesh that conflict ensues. The presence of moral conflict is a sign of the Spirit presence, not the Spirit's absence.”
― James D.G. Dunn, Romans: A Bible Commentary for Every Day

“True Christianity consists only in pure faith, love, and an holy life; which holiness of life springing up in the soul with faith and love, hath its beginning out of TRUE CONTRITION. And this contrition is never without a knowledge of one's self, whereby we perceive daily more and more our own defects, and amend them day by day. And thereby we arrive at a participation of the righteousness and holiness of Christ by faith. Wherein if we do walk, as having the continual fear of God before us, after the example of good children and loyal subjects, we must be sure not to nourish any thing that belongs to the FLESH. 'All things are lawful for me (saith the true Christian) but all things are not expedient. All things are indeed lawful for me, but all things edify not.' For as a dutiful son in his father's house doth not all what seemeth good unto him, though it were lawful for him so to do; but warily observeth the will and pleasure of his father, and, as it were, setting him still before him, doth consult with him, before ever he say or do any thing: so a true Christian, as the child of God, will behave himself in his Father's house, which is the church of God; will not allow himself in all things lawful, but will chastize his senses with Christian moderation, and will never do or speak any thing without consulting first his Father in heaven.”
― Johann Arndt, Johann Arndt: True Christianity