Charles R. Ringma > Quotes

“Receiving the grace of God never means that we continue with the way things were before. It separates us from the old; it never justifies the old. It embraces the new and calls the old into question.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“A hardship mentality can make us narrow and defensive. A success and prosperity mentality can make us selfish. An attitude of thankfulness to God, for what He gives us, can make us truly generous.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The lie of the devil consists of this: that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without Gods word. ” —TEMPTATION”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Thought If the world is the object of God’s redeeming concern, then we can hardly live as though the world is irrelevant.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“God’s ways are the ways which he himself has gone and which we are now to go with him. God will not allow us to go on any way which he himself has not preceded us.” —MEDITATING ON THE WORD”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“9 “There are Christians who want to be more spiritual than God himself. They like to talk of battle, renunciation, suffering, and the cross, and it is almost painful to them that the holy scripture speaks not only of that, but time and again of the good fortune of the devout, the well-being of the just.” —MEDITATING ON THE WORD”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“We are to learn to understand ourselves now as those who have been placed on the way and no longer can do anything other than walk in it.” —MEDITATING ON THE WORD”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The devil... takes the word of God’s grace in his hand and whispers to us: God is a God of grace; he will not take our sins so seriously.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“One is distressed by the failure of reasonable people to perceive either the depths of evil or the depths of the holy.” —ETHICS”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Our life is not only travail and labour; it is also refreshment and joy in the forgiveness of God. We labour, but God nourishes and sustains us. And this is the reason for celebrating.” —LIFE TOGETHER”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Faith stakes everything on the faithfulness of God.” —NO RUSTY SWORDS”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Jesus Christ is for his brethren by standing in
their place.” —CHRISTOLOGY”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Lord, help me first of all to confront in my own life all that is not according to Your will. Amen.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Do you really want to change the world? Then don’t rely on the power of our social and political institutions alone. Identify with Jesus, who identified with the poor and downtrodden, and seek to work out his transformation in the world through the power of the Spirit.”
― Charles R. Ringma, A Fragile Hope: Cultivating a Hermitage of the Heart

“God will often require quick action, but he also requires stillness and reflection.” —MEDITATING ON THE WORD”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Meditation If Christ would not be for us, who then would be?”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The Framework of Life Deuteronomy 6:2 “Thus for the sake of Christ and his coming, natural life must be lived within the framework of certain definite rights and certain definite duties.” —ETHICS The Christian’s concern should never only be for the church and for God’s future kingdom, but also for natural life and the world. Our concerns should include good government, equal opportunity, justice, values that ennoble the human person, as well as concerns for our environment and the world’s resources. These concerns are not secular. Rather they are deeply spiritual, for without a sustainable world and cultural values based on freedom and justice, the message of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ would fall into a vacuum. Thought The God of the Bible is Creator as well as Redeemer. He is concerned about this life as much as He is concerned about eternal life.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The truth still remains the greatest service of love which men can show each other in the community of Christ.” —NO RUSTY SWORDS”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Daily, quiet reflection on the word of God as it applies to me ... becomes for one a point of crystallisation for everything which gives interior and exterior order to my life.” —MEDITATING ON THE WORD”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“It is what we do with blessings or difficulties that will determine the kind of person we are becoming.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Reading of biblical books forces everyone who wants to hear to put himself, or to allow himself to be found, where God has acted once and for all for the salvation of men.” —LIFE TOGETHER”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Has the fellowship served to make the individual free, strong, and mature, or has it made him weak and dependent? Has it taken him by the hand for a while in order that he may learn again to walk by himself, or has it made him uneasy and unsure?” —LIFE TOGETHER”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The reasons one gives for an action to others and to one’s self are certainly inadequate. One can give a reason for everything. In the last resort, one acts from a level which remains hidden from us. So one can only ask God to judge us and to forgive us.” —THE WAY TO FREEDOM”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“3 “This is what I mean by worldliness—taking life in one’s stride, with all its duties and problems.... It is in such a life that we throw ourselves utterly into the arms of God and participate in his sufferings in the world.” —LETTERS AND PAPERS FROM PRISON”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“We must face up to the truth that the call of Christ does set up a barrier between man and his natural life. But this barrier is no surly contempt for life, no legalistic piety; it is the life which is life indeed, the gospel, the person of Jesus Christ.” —THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Discipline is not so much the way by which we are constrained, but the way we channel our energy in a particular direction.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to cultivate some particular form of asceticism ... but to be a man.” —LETTERS AND PAPERS FROM PRISON”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner; now come, as the sinner that you are to God who loves you. He wants you as you are; he does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; he wants you alone. ” —LIFE TOGETHER”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“The prayer for the vengeance of God is the prayer for the execution of his righteousness in the judgment of sin.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional

“Lord, help me to wait expectantly, to act purposefully, and to trust You to see me through to the end. Amen.”
― Charles R. Ringma, Seize the Day -- with Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A 365 Day Devotional