Marcela Manrique > Marcela's Quotes

“Believers cannot be truly happy or at peace as long as they remain largely focused upon themselves and their own needs, wants, and hurts. Only in becoming outwardly focused on ministering to the needs of others can they experience real satisfaction and sense of purpose. Thus we pastors do them a great disservice if we allow people to continue to see themselves primarily as recipients of ministry rather than deliverers of ministry.”
― Robert Morris, The Blessed Church: The Simple Secret to Growing the Church You Love

“Lord Jesus Christ, You are the Healer and our true Comforter. You hold us in the palm of Your hand. Lord, right now we want to remember, in the power of Jesus’ name, any emotional wounding that’s happened to us, any great loss we’ve experienced, any wrong that’s been done to us that we haven’t forgiven. We want to purposely name in prayer the reason for the pain we feel. Lord, we bring that wounded and bruised experience to You and place it at Your feet. Father, we acknowledge to You this great hurt and pray specifically for holy forgetfulness. We submit these memories to You and ask that You would heal us. Where there has been a lack of forgiveness, let there now be forgiveness in the power of Jesus’ name. I choose now, by an act of my will, to forgive every person who has ever wronged me and to release bitterness and unforgiveness in Jesus’ name. I choose to forgive myself for the wrong and shameful things I’ve done and to receive God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Where we have held on to feelings of being hurt, please take those feelings now and remove them from our lives. Where there are feelings of great loss, remind us that You hold all of life in Your sovereign hands.”
― Robert Morris, Truly Free: Breaking the Snares That So Easily Entangle

“Imagine yourself sitting with God, having coffee and chatting about life as you might with a friend. What kinds of things would you talk about that you aren’t currently talking to Him about right now?”
― Robert Morris, Frequency: Tune In. Hear God.

“helps me. He helps me know what to say when I’m speechless. He helps me know when to speak and when to keep my mouth closed.”
― Robert Morris, The God I Never Knew: How Real Friendship with the Holy Spirit Can Change Your Life

“Maybe you’ve woken up in the middle of the night and needed to go to the bathroom or wanted to go to the kitchen, and then while you were walking across a dark room, you stubbed your toe. I know I’ve done this—and it hurts! I bet you’ve done this too. What will help in a situation like that? The answer is simple. Turn on a lamp. When we flip on a light switch, there is no argument between light and dark. When the light is on, the darkness is gone. There’s no fight. There’s no struggle. Similarly, if we feel confused about which direction to turn, then the first thing we ought to do is turn to God and read the Bible. Go to God through the pages of His Word. King David, in Psalm 119:105, states it plainly: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Light dispels darkness. First John 1:5 declares this truth: “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”
― Robert Morris, Frequency: Tune In. Hear God.

“Tithing isn’t really giving—it’s returning. It is bringing back to the Lord what is already His. Thus, the second principle of multiplication is that finances over and above the tithe must be shared if they are to multiply.”
― Robert Morris, The Blessed Life: Unlocking the Rewards of Generous Living

“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“It is only because he became like us that we can become like him.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“The most experienced psychologist or observer of human nature knows infinitely less of the human heart than the simplest Christian who lives beneath the Cross of Jesus. The greatest psychological insight, ability, and experience cannot grasp this one thing: what sin is. Worldly wisdom knows what distress and weakness and failure are, but it does not know the godlessness of man. And so it also does not know that man is destroyed only by his sin and can be healed only by forgiveness. Only the Christian knows this. In the presence of a psychiatrist I can only be a sick man; in the presence of a Christian brother I can dare to be a sinner. The psychiatrist must first search my heart and yet he never plumbs its ultimate depth. The Christian brother knows when I come to him: here is a sinner like myself, a godless man who wants to confess and yearns for God’s forgiveness. The psychiatrist views me as if there were no God. The brother views me as I am before the judging and merciful God in the Cross of Jesus Christ.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre

“After all, if there is a heaven, we will find each other again, for there is no heaven without you.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Longest Ride