Quotes about Sacrifice

He differentiated between Christianity as a religion like all the others—which attempt but fail to make an ethical way for man to climb to heaven of his own accord—and following Christ, who demands everything, including our very lives.

Simply suffering—that is what will be needed then—not parries, blows or thrusts such as may still be possible or admissible in the preliminary fight; the real struggle that perhaps lies ahead must simply be to suffer faithfully... For sometime the church struggle hasn't even been about what it appears to be about; the lines have been drawn somewhere else entirely.

He felt that what was especially missing from the life of Christians in Germany was the day-to-day reality of dying to self, of following Christ with every ounce of one's being in every moment, in every part of one's life.

Take all we have, only give us peace'? In God's name…let us at least make one effort; and if we must fall, let us fall like men!

Bonhoeffer was simply saying that if we wished truly to live, we must be prepared to die. And this was not bad news at all, but rather was the very best of good news imaginable. In fact it is called the good news or the gospel, and it is simply that Jesus has purchased for us a passage to eternal life, something so outrageous and unbelievable that most people really don't believe it and therefore ignore it.

To renounce a full life and its real joys in order to avoid pain is neither Christian nor human.

Bonhoeffer was constantly trying to correct the idea of a false choice between God and humanity, or heaven and earth. God wanted to redeem humanity and to redeem this earth, not to abolish them.

The cost of caring for the "incurables" was prohibitive. They must "give their lives" for the greater cause just as everyone else, and just as the parents of soldiers must "make the ultimate sacrifice".

Christ in us gives us over to death so that he can live within us. Thus our inner dying grows to meet that death from without. Christians receive their own death in this way, and in this way our physical death very truly becomes not the end but rather the fulfillment of our life with Jesus Christ.

While Hildebrandt, Niemöller, and Jacobi were thinking about how to defeat Müller, Bonhoeffer was thinking about God's highest call, about the call of discipleship and its cost.

Human being's moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions.

One must be more zealous to please God than to avoid sin. One must sacrifice oneself utterly to God's purposes, even to the point of possibly making moral mistakes. One's obedience to God must be forward-oriented and zealous and free, and to be a mere moralist or pietist would make such a life impossible: