God – Zitate

What is God? The telescope by which we hold converse with the stars, the microscope which unveils the secrets of nature, the crucible of the chemist, the knife of the anatomist, the reflective faculties of the philosopher, all the common instruments of science, avail not here. On the threshold of that impenetrable mystery, a voice arrests our steps. From out the clouds and darkness that are round about God's throne, the question comes, "Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?"

— Thomas Guthrie

God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.

— Westminster Catechism

  ​ Ah, my friends, we must look out and around to see what God is like. It is when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to make God after our own image, and fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of His light and love.

— Charles Kingsley

God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man said, "Let us make God in our image."

— Douglas Jerrold

God Himself—His thoughts, His will, His love, His judgments are men's home. To think His thoughts, to choose His will, to judge His judgments, and thus to know that He is in us, with us, is to be at home. And to pass through the valley of the shadow of death is the way home, but only thus, that as all changes have hitherto led us nearer to this home, the knowledge of God, so this greatest of all outward changes—for it is but an outward change—will surely usher us into a region where there will be fresh possibilities of drawing nigh in heart, soul, and mind to the Father of us all.

— George MacDonald

God should be the object of all our desires, the end of all our actions, the principle of all our affections, and the governing power of our whole souls.

— Massillon

God is the only sure foundation on which the mind can rest.

— S. Irenæus Prime

From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end.

— Samuel Johnson

  ​ Brethren, the Deity was not revealed to gratify our curiosity, or to increase our pride of intellect, but to bring us into relations of affection, submission, and communion with Him.

— E. N. Kirk

Running like a Gulf-stream through the sea of time, comes the affirmation that God has manifested Himself to man, and the best men have affirmed it most persistently. Wherever this affirmation has made its way, the icebergs of skepticism have disappeared, the temperature of virtue has risen, and the sweet fruits of charity have ripened. If the belief be false, then a lie has blessed the world, and the soul is so organized that it reaches its highest state of development in an atmosphere of deception; for it is a fact that man is purest and woman most virtuous where belief in God's manifestations is most intense and real.

— O. P. Gifford

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul.

— Pope

As a man exhibits himself in physical forms and actions, so there is one other Spirit, a great, wide, mighty, infinite, eternal Spirit back there in the depths of space, and in the present, and in the future, and in the abysses of space, who at His will wrestles into existence great globes, and keeps them in their position. He builds them, and places on them these mysterious forms of earth which are signals hung out over these abysses to tell coming spirits who He is, what He is, what He does, how high is His throne, and how vast is His power from eternity to eternity, from infinity to infinity through all ages of all time; He is holding forth to men and angels these external tokens of His almighty power, of His infinite skill, and of His everlasting love.

— Bishop R. S. Foster

  ​ As Phidias contrived his mechanism so that his memory could never be obliterated without the destruction of his work, so the great name of God is interwoven in the texture of all that He has made. His goodness blooms in every flower; His glory beams in every star. There is a God! The sun speaks it in his splendor by day, and the moon in her radiance by night. There is a God! Inanimate nature, from the pebble upon the beach, to the orb that shines in the vaulted sky, declares it; and animate existence, from the tiniest insect, to Gabriel before the throne. The earth is full of Him. His majesty commands the cherubim; His temple is all space; His arm is around all worlds.

— Joseph Dare

The mystery of the universe, and the meaning of God's world, are shrouded in hopeless obscurity, until we learn to feel that all laws suppose a lawgiver, and that all working involves a Divine energy.

— Alexander Maclaren

If we can keep our minds calm on the subject of the "Eternity of God," if reason does not totter on her seat at the contemplation of underived existence, it will be strange if any other mystery relating to God should disturb us. He who can bring his reason to bow reverently at the idea of a Being who had no beginning, is well prepared to receive any communication of His will.

— Nehemiah Adams

O God, our help in ages past,      Our hope for years to come, Be Thou our guard while troubles last,      And our eternal home!

— Watts

  ​ Fatherhood! what does that word itself teach us? It speaks of the communication of a life, and the reciprocity of love. It rests upon a Divine act, and it involves a human emotion. It involves that the Father and the child shall have kindred life—the Father bestowing, and the child possessing a life which is derived; and because derived, kindred; and because kindred, unfolding itself in likeness to the Father that gave it. And it requires that between the Father's heart and the child's .mw-parser-output .wst-tooltip{cursor:help;border-bottom:thin dotted cornflowerblue}.mw-parser-output .wst-tooltip-nodash{border-bottom:none} eart there shall pass, in blessed interchange and quick correspondence, answering love, flashing backwards and forwards, like the lightning that touches the earth, and rises from it again.

— Alexander Maclaren

God of my fathers! holy, just, and good! My God, my Father! my unfailing hope!

— Pollock

What another being is life when we have found out our Father; and if we work, it is beneath His eye, and if we play, it is in the light and encouragement of His smile. Earth's sunshine is heaven's radiance, and the stars of night as if the beginning of the beatific vision; so soft, so sweet, so gentle, so resposeful, so almost infinite have all things become, because we have found our Father in our God.

— F. W. Faber

  ​ God's truth and faithfulness "are a great deep." They resemble the ocean itself; always there—vast, fathomless, sublime, the same in its majesty, its inexhaustible fullness, yesterday, to-day, and forever; the same in calm and storm, by day and by night; changeless while generations come and pass; everlasting while ages are rolling away.

— Richard Fuller

If you were to spend a month feeding on the precious promises of God, you would not be going about with your heads hanging down like bulrushes, complaining how poor you are; but you would lift up your heads with confidence, and proclaim the riches of His grace because you could not help it.

— D. L. Moody

I believe the promises of God enough to venture an eternity on them.

— Watts

There is no creature so small and abject, that it representeth not the goodness of God.

— Thomas à Kempis

Not a step can we take in any direction without perceiving the most extraordinary traces of design; and the skill everywhere conspicuous is calculated in so vast a proportion of instances to promote the happiness of living creatures, and especially of ourselves, that we feel no hesitation in concluding that, if we knew the whole scheme of Providence, every part would appear to be in harmony with a plan of absolute benevolence.

— Lord Brougham

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

— Edmund Burke

  ​ Whatever may be the mysteries of life and death, there is one mystery which the cross of Christ reveals to us, and that is the infinite and absolute goodness of God. Let all the rest remain a mystery so long as the mystery of the cross of Christ gives us faith for all the rest.

— Charles Kingsley

Let me, O my God, stifle forever in my heart every thought that would tempt me to doubt Thy goodness. I know that Thou canst not but be good. O merciful Father, let me no longer reason about grace, but silently abandon myself to its operation.

— Fenelon

His goodness stands approved,      Unchanged from day to day; I'll drop my burden at His feet,      And bear a song away.

— Philip Doddridge

God's treasury where He keeps His children's gifts will be like many a mother's store of relics of her children, full of things of no value to others, but precious in His eyes for the love's sake that was in them.

— Fenelon

God's highest gifts—talent, beauty, feeling, imagination, power—they carry with them the possibility of the highest heaven and the lowest hell. Be sure that it is by that which is highest in you that you may be lost.

— F. W. Robertson

  ​ The sun by the action of heat makes wax moist and mud dry, hardening the one while it softens the other, by the same operation producing exactly opposite results; thus, from the long-suffering of God, some derive benefit, and others harm; some are softened, while others are hardened.

— Theodoret

Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,      Pilgrim through this barren land; I am weak, but Thou art mighty;      Hold me with Thy powerful hand;           Bread of heaven! Feed me till I want no more.

— W. Williams

"I will guide thee with mine eye"—a glance, not a blow—a look of directing love that at once heartens to duty, and tells duty. We must be very near Him to catch that look, and very much in sympathy with Him to understand it; but when we do, we must be swift to obey.

— Alexander Maclaren

Whosoever is really earnest for Divine direction, more anxious to know what the Lord would have him do than to know what is for his own present ease or worldly interest, and who confides the case to Him who giveth wisdom liberally, and upbraideth not, may count on it very confidently that the Lord will send forth His light.

— James Hamilton

If thou art fighting against thy sins, so is God. On thy side is God who made all, and Christ who died for all and the Spirit who alone gives wisdom, purity, and nobleness.

— Charles Kingsley

  ​ As long as we work on God's line, He will aid us. When we attempt to work on our own lines, He rebukes us with failure.

— T. L. Cuyler

As a general rule, those truths which we highly relish, and which shed a degree of practical light upon the things which we are required to give up for God, are leadings of Divine grace, which we should follow without hesitation.

— Fenelon

There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands.

— John Ruskin

The Christian will sometimes be brought to walk in a solitary path. God seems to cut away his props, that He may reduce him to Himself. His religion is to be felt as a personal, particular, appropriate possession. He is to feel, that, as there is but one Jehovah to bless, so there seems to him as though there were but one penitent in the universe to be blessed by Him.

— Richard Cecil

Can we be unsafe where God has placed us, and where He watches over us as a parent a child that he loves?

— Fenelon

  ​ When ye are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore of glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, "If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoyment of this crown of glory."

— Rutherford

Lead, kindly Light! amid the encircling gloom,      Lead Thou me on; The night is dark, and I am far from home,      Lead Thou me on; Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene; one step enough for me.

— John H. Newman

Do you feel that you have lost your way in life? Then God Himself will show you your way. Are you utterly helpless, worn out, body and soul? Then God's eternal love is ready and willing to help you up, and revive you. Are you wearied with doubts and terrors? Then God's eternal light is ready to show you your way; God's eternal peace ready to give you peace. Do you feel yourself full of sins and faults? Then take heart; for God's unchangeable will is, to take away those sins, and purge you from those faults.

— Charles Kingsley

O, shall I ever learn      The lesson grand, That I should never spurn      The offered hand Reached out to guide my way      Through life's dark land?

— Mrs. N. A. Holt

  ​ Day and night, and every moment, there are voices about us. All the hours speak as they pass; and in every event there is a message to us; and all our circumstances talk with us; but it is in Divine language, that worldliness misunderstands, that selfishness is frightened at, and that only the children of God hear rightly and happily.

— Wm. Mountford

My faith is, that there is a greater amount of revelation given to guide each man by the principles laid down in the Bible, by conscience, and by providence, than most men are aware of. It is not the light which is defective, it is an eye to see it.

— Norman Macleod

Show me what I have to do, Every hour my strength renew; Let me live a life of faith, Let me die Thy people's death.

— Newton

The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable—not concealed, but incomprehensible. It is a clear infinity—the darkness of the pure, unsearchable sea.

— John Ruskin

The human mind may know God, and learn of God, though it has no terms by which to explain Him; it may think of Him as Absolute, as Infinite, as Personal, while it may never in this life be able to fathom the full meaning of these sublime ideas.

— George C. Lorimer

What we want is not infinitude, but a boundless One; not to feel that love is the law of this universe, but to feel One whose name is Love.

— F. W. Robertson

The law is obligated to punish the transgressor as much as the transgressor is obligated to obey the law—law has no option. Justice has but one function. The necessity of penalty is as great as the necessity of obligation. The law itself is under law; that is, it is under the necessity of its own nature; and therefore the only possible way whereby a transgressor can escape the penalty of the law, is for a substitute to endure it for him. The deep substrata and base of all God's ethical attributes are eternal law and impartial justice.

— Prof. Shedd

God is kind; but within the limits of inexorable law. He is good, but you can take no liberties with Him; for back of His pity and kindness is the righteousness that is so exact, and that must be satisfied to the uttermost farthing.

— J. R. Paxton

  ​ Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all.

— Charles Kingsley

God's justice and love are one. Infinite justice must be infinite love. Justice is but another sign of love.

— F. W. Robertson

Justice is but the perseverance of God's wisdom, the determination of His power, and the victory of His love.

— James Hamilton

Though, in debating with regard to theories, it be lawful to say whether this or that is consistent with the Divine attributes, yet, when we find that God has actually done any thing, all question about its justice, wisdom, and benevolence, is forever out of place.

— Nehemiah Adams

How far from here to heaven?      Not very far, my friend; A single hearty step      Will all thy journey end. Hold there! where runnest thou?      Know heaven is in thee! Seekest thou for God elsewhere?      His face thou'lt never see.

— Angelus Silesius

I sought Thee at a distance, and did not know that Thou wast near. I sought Thee abroad, and behold Thou wast within me.

— St. Augustine

  ​ The kingdom of God which is within us consists in our willing whatever God wills, always, in every thing, and without reservation; and thus His kingdom comes; for His will is then done as it is in heaven, since we will nothing but what is dictated by His sovereign pleasure.

— Fenelon

Were it not well, then, to begin with the substance, to learn to apprehend the reality of that kingdom which is all around us now, whether we recognize it or not,—to take our aims and endeavors into it, that they may be made part of it, however small,—to surrender ourselves to it, that our lives may do something towards its advancement, and that we may become fellow-workers, however humble, with all the wise and good who have gone before us, and with Him who made them what they are?

— J. C. Shairp