Quotes about Merit
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.
— Mark Twain
Freedom is not a gift which can be enjoyed save by those shown themselves worthy of it.
— Theodore Roosevelt
Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
— Mark Twain
Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
— Mark Twain
For the kingdom is not being prepared, but has been prepared, while the sons of the Kingdom are being prepared, not preparing the Kingdom; that is to say, the Kingdom merits the sons, not the songs the Kingdom. So all hell merits and prepares its children rather than they it.
— Martin Luther
what is sought by means of free choice is to make room for merits.
— Martin Luther
We also know that God is no respecter of persons. A plain factory hand who does his work faithfully pleases God just as much as a minister of the Word.
— Martin Luther
faith alone makes all other works good, acceptable and worthy
— Martin Luther
Trying to merit grace by preceding works, therefore, is trying to placate God with sins, which is nothing but heaping sins upon sins, making fun of God, and provoking His wrath.
— Martin Luther
Those who are already righteous and heirs of eternal life through Christ, whose merit they accept by faith — they do good, not with the purpose of attaining eternal life, to which they are already entitled by an alien merit, namely, Christ's, but with the purpose of being pleasing and obedient to the divine voice, so that the glory of God as well as holy teaching and life are promoted.
— Martin Luther
Therefore neither discipline nor other virtues which can be invented by the will, nor works taken upon oneself, no matter how difficult, merit forgiveness of sins or reconcile us with God, but only faith in the Son of God.
— Martin Luther
The gospel also is not a law book that contains many good teachings, as has been thought in the past. It doesn't tell us to do good works to become virtuous but announces God's grace to us, given freely and without our merit. It tells us how Christ stood as our representative. He paid for our sins and wiped them out so that we can become faithful and blessed through his work.
— Martin Luther