靈命塑造 期中報告 - Selected

選自: 靈命塑造IV 期中報告

1. …常常聽到我們要回轉像小孩，可是看到這裡卻說：「我作孩子的時候、話語像孩子、心思像孩子、意念像孩子．既成了人、就把孩子的事丟棄了。」似乎又像是不好的部分，不過我想應該就是在小孩子純全的信心是值得效法的，和小孩子的所知不完全、還尚待成長的特點吧…

2. …記得有一次在課堂上，老師曾分享，上帝就如同雕塑家，祂不斷在除去我們生命中不好的雜質，為的就是要使我們生命是一件美好的藝術品！當我仔細去閱讀經文，並思考最近所經歷的一切。我感受到神在我生命上的塑造，祂透過在人所看為不好的經歷去雕塑我…

3. …若不靠著 神，我無法愛人如己，神都沒定這些人和我的罪，為何我有權去評斷他們的生命呢？所以當我以為自己是很有愛心的人時，神才讓我看見，那離真愛還有多遠，而我成了神愛的出口的最大阻礙。當我的出發點、動機錯了的時候，我做什麼都是無益處的。這讓我重新學習，最大的服事就是愛 神、愛人和愛我自己。這個功課我還在學習中，也許這也是我一生最大的學習.

4. …因為我們常常會被上帝所賜給我們的恩賜給沖昏了頭，認為上帝是最愛我們的，我們只需要好好的使用上帝的恩賜就可以了，但我們卻忘了，上帝給我們最大的恩賜是要我們去愛別人…

5. …羅馬書12章4-5節提醒並給予我很深的印象。「個人」必須進入到「群體」，也就是「教會」。因為「肢體」一定是在「身子」上的，不可能離開身體；可見參與教會、團契生活是不可或缺的。如果離開了教會--在基督裡之兄弟姊妹所組成之團體，可想像成是「斷手斷腳」了嘛！也能想像是沒有完全連結於基督！離開了教會，就少認識耶穌基督其他不同的肢體，無法全面認識耶穌基督…

6. ...最重要的是，『要讓上帝改造你們，更新你們的心思意念，好明察甚麼是他的旨意，知道甚麼是良善、完全，可蒙悅納的。』我們能改變，不是出於自身的努力，而是祂的工作。我們無法透過各式各樣的方式使自己變成「好人」或是「聖人」。這一切都是祂的心意，我們只能選擇謙卑與降服，唯有如此，祂才能逐漸地幫助我們成為祂所命定的樣式。而這整個過程，就是基督徒一輩子的功課。

Paul Tillich

Paul Johannes Tillich (1886 – 1965) was a German-American theologian and Christian existentialist philosopher. Tillich was one of the most influential Protestant theologians of the 20th century. His best known books are The Courage to Be (1952), Dynamics of Faith (1957), and three-volume work Systematic Theology (1951–63).  

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence, and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
There is no love which does not become help.

The Christ is God-for-us! But God is not only for us, [God] is for everything created.

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Harry E. Fosdick

   Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969)

Harry Emerson Fosdick, who was ordained a Baptist minister in 1903 at the Madison Avenue Baptist Church, was the most prominent liberal Baptist minister of the early 20th Century. Fosdick, a graduate from Colgate University, Union Theological Seminary(NY) and Columbia University, served as Riverside's first senior minister, 1930–46, and established an openness to diversity and strong progressive policy.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

Christians are supposed not merely to endure change, nor even to profit by it, but to cause it.

God has put within our lives meanings and possibilities that quite outrun the limits of mortality. 

God is not a cosmic bellboy for whom we can press a button to get things.

Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.

He who cannot rest, cannot work; he who cannot let go, cannot hold on; he who cannot find footing, cannot go forward.

He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means that determines the end.

I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.

It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

Life asks not merely what you can do; it asks how much can you endure and not be spoiled.

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.

Preaching is personal counseling on a group basis.

Religion is not a burden, not a weight, it is wings.

The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.

The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst.

The world is moving so fast these days that the one who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.

Mother Teresa

   Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

... During the last years of her life, despite increasingly severe health problems, Mother Teresa continued to govern her Society and respond to the needs of the poor and the Church. By 1997, Mother Teresa’s Sisters numbered nearly 4,000 members and were established in 610 foundations in 123 countries of the world. In March 1997 she blessed her newly-elected successor as Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity and then made one more trip abroad. After meeting Pope John Paul II for the last time, she returned to Calcutta and spent her final weeks receiving visitors and instructing her Sisters. 

On September 5 Mother Teresa’s earthly life came to an end.  She was given the honor of a state funeral by the Government of India and her body was buried in the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. Her tomb quickly became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for people of all faiths, rich and poor alike. Mother Teresa left a testament of unshakable faith, invincible hope and extraordinary charity. Her response to Jesus’ plea, “Come be My light,” made her a Missionary of Charity, a “mother to the poor,” a symbol of compassion to the world, and a living witness to the thirsting love of God.

Less than two years after her death, in view of Mother Teresa’s widespread reputation of holiness and the favors being reported, Pope John Paul II permitted the opening of her Cause of Canonization. On 20 December 2002 he approved the decrees of her heroic virtues and miracles.

Selected Quotes from Mother Teresa:

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

”Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”

“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.”

“I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.”

“Peace begins with a smile...”

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, 'How many good things have you done in your life?' rather he will ask, 'How much love did you put into what you did?”

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”

“Live simply so others may simply live.” 
 

“It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.”

“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done.
We will be judged by "I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.”

“Prayer in action is love, love in action is service.”

“I'm a little pencil in the hand of a writing God, who is sending a love letter to the world.”

“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”

“If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are.” 
 

“Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.”

“Spread the love of God through your life but only use words when necessary.”

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

“Without patience, we will learn less in life. We will see less. We will feel less. We will hear less. Ironically, rush and more usually mean less.”

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard

                    Selected Quotes from Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855)

Kierkegaard was critical of the state and practice of Christianity, primarily that of the Church of Denmark.  He is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.

Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.
His theological work focuses on Christian Ethics, Institution of the Church, and on the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity. He wrote of the individual's subjective relationship to Jesus Christ, the God-Man, which came through faith.

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.

During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk.

Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.

God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure.  But he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.

The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.

The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.

To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Selected Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) is known for his leadership role in the Confessing Church, efforts on behalf of peace and justice, opposition to anti-Semitism, and writings on theology and ethics that have been influential far beyond his German Lutheran context. He was hanged by the Nazis on April 6, 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp.

- The followings are the quotes from Letters and Papers from Prison

When we come to a clearer and more sober estimate of our own limitations and responsibilities, that makes it possible more genuinely to love our neighbor.

We have learned a bit too late in the day that action springs not from thought but from a readiness for responsibility.

There remains an experience of incomparable value . . . to see the great events of world history from below; from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled ---- in short, from the perspective of those who suffer . . . to look with new eyes on matters great and small.

In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give; life can be rich only with such realization.

- The followings are the quotes from The Cost of Discipleship

Our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility… As a Christian I am called to treat my enemy as a brother and to meet hostility with love. My behavior is thus determined not by the way others treat me, but by the treatment I receive from Jesus.

The first call which every Christian experiences is the call to abandon the attachments of this world.

Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.

The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . And they must not only have peace but also make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. . .  His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they over-come evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others, we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as ourselves.

- The followings are the quotes from Life Together

It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient, and far more important, if the Word, as we read and understand it, penetrates and dwells within us.

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.

I can no longer condemn or hate a brother [or sister] for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed through intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died.

So long as we eat our bread together, we shall have sufficient even for the least. Not until one person desires to keep his own bread for himself does hunger ensue.

- The followings are the quotes from No Rusty Swords

From God we hear the word: “If you want my goodness to stay with you then serve your neighbor, for that is where God comes to you.”

Which of us has really admitted that God’s goodness can also lead us into conflict?  

The believer is neither a pessimist nor an optimist. To be either is illusory. The believer sees reality not in a certain light but as it is, and believes only in God and God’s power towards all and over all that is seen.  

- The followings are the quotes from Ethics

In a world where success is the measure and justification of all things, the figure of him who was sentenced and crucified remains a stranger.

There is not a place to which the Christian can withdraw from the world, whether it be outwardly or in the sphere of the inner life. Any attempt to escape from the world must sooner or later be paid for with a sinful surrender to the world.

To be silent does not mean to be inactive; rather it means to breathe in the will of God, to listen attentively and be ready to obey. Meditating on the Word

You have granted me many blessings; let me also accept what is hard from your hand. Prayers from Prison

For the working class world, Christ seems to be settled with the church and middle class society. Christology

The future and the hope for the middle class church lies in the renewal of its lifeblood, which is only possible if the church succeeds in winning the working class. Sanctum Communion

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense; shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong. Sermon on II Cor. 12:9

There is no way to peace along the way to safety. For peace must be dared. It is the great venture. Address at Fanon