Quotation of the Week

“Jesus, however, shifts us completely beyond this level of morality and says to us: If in all seriousness you consider how often you have offended God and how he has forgiven you again and again; if you take seriously the literal fact that every morning and every night you can say, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ and that he actually does forgive them; then there is no longer, in any case not primarily, a question f ‘self-control’ whether you go on repeatedly forgiving your neighbor. Therefore, please, when your neighbor does something bad, do not say, ‘Now as a Christian I must grin and bear it; now I mustn’t react like a natural man; now I must snap to attention spiritually and maintain an attitude of forbearance.’ When you do this as a Christian you are right back on the moral level again…No, the glorious thing is that with Jesus we become free, at ease, and cleansed of complexes. In these cases we do not alert the will but quietly utter this simple prayer: ‘Lord, how often hast thou forgiven me; how often hast thou not taken me back again…’ It is not a matter of exerting great will power; it is rather a matter of turning our eyes very slightly and looking at the Cross.”

From Christ and the Meaning of Life, by Helmut Thielicke