Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Martin LutherRead
The certain mark by which a Christian community can be recognized is the preaching of the gospel in its purity.
Interpretation
A true Christian community is identified by its commitment to preach the gospel truthfully and without distortion.
Martin Luther emphasizes that the essence of a Christian community lies in its dedication to preaching the gospel as it is intended, without alterations or misinterpretations. This highlights the importance of authenticity and purity in religious teachings, suggesting that genuine faith must be reflected in how the faith is shared and communicated within the community.
In practice
In a sermon on the importance of faith, a pastor might quote Luther to emphasize the need for truth in teaching.
Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.
Now if I believe in God's Son and remember that He became man, all creatures will appear a hundred times more beautiful to me than before. Then I will properly appreciate the sun, the moon, the stars, trees, apples, as I reflect that he is Lord over all things. ...God writes the Gospel, not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars.
It is the part of a Christian to take care of his own body for the very purpose that, by its soundness and wellbeing, he may be enabled to labour, and to acquire and preserve property, for the aid of those who are in want, that thus the stronger member may serve the weaker member, and we may be children of God, and busy for one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfiling the law of Christ.
Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
In a mouse we admire God's creation and craft work. The same may be said about flies.
The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man... it constitutes the powerful obstacle to culture.
We would be in a nasty position indeed if empirical science were the only kind of science possible.
What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that's too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
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