Quotes by Martin Luther
“This grace of God is a very great, strong, mighty and active thing. It does not lie asleep in the soul. Grace hears, leads, drives, draws, changes, works all in man, and lets itself be distinctly felt and experienced. It is hidden, but its works are evident.
We are saved by faith alone, but the faith that saves is never alone.”
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. ”
“By faith we began, by hope we continue, and by revelation we shall obtain the whole.”
“Faith is a living, unshakable confidence in God's grace; it is so certain that someone would die a thousand times for it.”
“When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which a person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own but that of another, Christ.”
“To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.”
“The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands”
“He [Christ] died for me. He made His righteousness mine and made my sin His own; and if He made my sin His own, then I do not have it, and I am free.”
“So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!”
“If you try to deal with sin in your conscience, let it remain there, and continue to look at it in your heart, your sins will become too strong for you. They will seem to live forever. But when you think of your sins as being on Christ and boldly believe that he conquered them through his resurrection, then they are dead and gone. Sin can’t remain on Christ. His resurrection swallowed up sin.”
“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
“I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”
“The gospel tells us who Christ is. Through it, we learn that he is our Savior. He delivers us from sin and death, helps us out of all misfortune, reconciles us to the Father, makes us godly, and saves us apart from our own works. Anyone who doesn’t acknowledge Christ in this way will fail. For even if you already know that he is God’s Son, that he died, rose again, and sits at the right hand of the Father, you still haven’t known Christ in the right way. This knowledge doesn’t help you. You also must know and believe that he has done all of this for your sake—in order to help you.”
“True humility does not know that it is humble. If it did, it would be proud from the contemplation of so fine a virtue.”
“We teach that all men are naturally depraved. We condemn man's free will, his strength, wisdom, and righteousness. We say that we obtain grace by the free mercy of God alone for Christ's sake.”
“Grace remits sin, and peace quiets the conscience. Sin and conscience torment us, but Christ has overcome these fiends now and forever.”
“I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.”
“Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are deceiving; my warrant is the Word of God--Naught else is worth believing.
Though all my heart should feel condemned for want of some sweet token, There is One greater than my heart Whose Word cannot be broken. I'll trust in God's unchanging Word Till soul and body sever, For, though all things shall pass away, HIS WORD SHALL STAND FOREVER!”
“God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”
“Whenever the devil harasses you, seek the company of men or drink more, or joke and talk nonsense, or do some other merry thing. Sometimes we must drink more, sport, recreate ourselves, and even sin a little to spite the devil, so that we leave him no place for troubling our consciences with trifles. We are conquered if we try too conscientiously not to sin at all. So when the devil says to you: do not drink, answer him: I will drink, and right freely, just because you tell me not to.”
“Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.”
“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say”
“I cannot choose but adhere to the word of God, which has possession of my conscience; nor can I possibly, nor will I even make any recantation, since it is neither safe nor honest to act contrary to conscience! Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen.”
“I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God.”
“Although it is very easy to marry a wife, it is very difficult to support her along with the children and the household. Accordingly, no one notices this faith of Jacob. Indeed, many hate fertility in a wife for the sole reason that the offspring must
be supported and brought up. For this is what they commonly say: ‘Why should I marry a wife when I am a pauper and a beggar? I would rather bear the burden of poverty alone and not load myself with misery and want.’ But this blame is unjustly fastened on marriage and fruitfulness. Indeed, you are indicting your unbelief by distrusting God’s goodness, and you are bringing greater misery upon yourself by disparaging God’s blessing. For if you had trust in God’s grace and promises, you would undoubtedly be supported. But because you do not hope in the Lord, you will never prosper.”
“All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.”
“I know not the way God leads me, but well do I know my Guide.”
“All the cunning of the devil is exercised in trying to tear us away from the word.”
“There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.”
“Peace if possible. Truth at all costs.”
“The heart overflows with gladness and leaps and dances for the joy it has found in God. In this experience the Holy Spirit is active, and has taught us in the flash of a moment the deep secret of joy. You will have as much joy and laughter in life as you have faith in God.”
“It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.”
“In the midst of the affliction He counsels, strengthens confirms, nourishes, and favors us.... More over, when we have repented, He instantly remits the sins as well as the punishments. In the same manner parents ought to handle their children.”
“The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”
“The Christian shoemaker does his duty not by putting little crosses on the shoes, but by making good shoes, because God is interested in good craftsmanship.”
“Thus every matter, if it is to be done well, calls for the attention of the whole person.”
“Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying..”
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject of all, subject to all.”
“I've got so much work to do today, I'd better spend two hours in prayer instead of one.”
“The fewer the words, the better the prayer.”
Prayer is not overcoming God's reluctance. It is laying hold of His willingness.”
“No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.”
“Pray, and let God worry.”
“God wants us to pray, and he wants to hear our prayers—not because we are worthy, but because he is merciful.”
“Before you can cry to God and seek him God must come to you and must have found you,”
“No great saint lived without errors.”
“For all works and things, which are either commanded or forbidden by God and thus have been instituted by the
supreme Majesty, are 'musts.' Nevertheless, no one should be dragged to them or away from them by the hair, for I can drive no man to heaven or beat him into it with a club.
“We are nothing with all our gifts be they ever so great, except God assist us.”
God does not need your good works, but your neighbor does.”
“Those speak foolishly who ascribe their anger or their impatience to such as offend them or to tribulation. Tribulation does not make people impatient, but proves that they are impatient. So everyone may learn from tribulation how his heart is constituted.”
“If you want to interpret well and confidently, set Christ before you, for He is the man to whom it all applies, every bit of it.”
“Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior. ”
“One learns more of Christ in being married and rearing children than in several lifetimes spent in study in a monastery.”
“This is the most dangerous trial of all, when there is no trial and everything goes well; for then a man is tempted to forget God, to become too bold and to misuse times of prosperity.”
“What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and work flow.”
“I frankly confess that even if it were possible I should not wish to have free choice given to me, or to have anything left in my own hands by which I might strive for salvation.”
“Strange, though I am saved from sin, I am not saved from sinning.”
“Fight vigorously against the wolves, but on behalf of the sheep, not against the sheep. And this you may do by inveighing against the laws and lawgivers, and yet at the same time observing these laws with the weak, lest they be offended, until they shall themselves recognize the tyranny, and understand their own liberty.”
“It is not imitation that makes sons. It is sonship that make imitators.”
“He who believes God, recognizes Him as true and faithful, and himself as a liar; for he mistrusts his own thinking as false, and trusts the Word of God as being true, though it absolutely contradicts his own reasoning.”
“Our whole life should be manly; we should fear God and put our trust in him.”
“It is easy enough to do good once or twice, but to keep on doing good without getting disgusted with the ingratitude of those whom we have benefited, that is not so easy.”
“One thing, and only one thing, is necessary for Christian life, righteousness, and freedom. That one thing is the most holy Word of God, the gospel of Christ.”
“If God does not open and explain Holy Writ, no one can understand it; it will remain a closed book, enveloped in darkness.”
“Although the Christian is thus free from all works, he ought in this liberty to empty himself, take upon himself the form of a servant, be made in the likeness of men, be found in human form, and to serve, help and in every way deal with his neighbor as he sees that God through Christ has dealt and still deals with him.”
“In these words the Apostle sets forth a most apt antithesis: first, he who is justified by faith has peace with God, but tribulation with the world, because his life is spiritual. Secondly, the unrighteous have peace with the world, but anguish and tribulation with God, because their life is carnal. Thirdly, as God the Holy Spirit is eternal, so also the peace of the righteous and the tribulation of the unrighteous will be everlasting. Lastly, as the flesh is temporal, so also the tribulation of the righteous and the peace of the unrighteous will be temporary.”
“The article of justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly and to believe it with all our heart.”
“God made man out of nothing, and as long as we are nothing, He can make something out of us.”
“Good works do not make a good man, but a good man does good works; evil works do not make a wicked man, but a wicked man does evil works.”
“It is not our work, but God's gift, that we now hate ourselves and our sinful lusts and follow after love.”
“What man, if he were God, would humble himself to lie in the feedbox of a donkey or to hang upon a cross?”
“One becomes a theologian by living, by dying, and by being damned, not by understanding, reading, and speculation.”
“Each one should become as it were a Christ to the other that we may be Christs to one another and Christ may be the same in all, that is, that we may be truly Christians.”
“the paradox is that God must destroy in us, all illusions of righteousness before he can make us righteous”
“One thing, and one alone, is necessary for life, justification, and Christian liberty; and that is the most holy word of God, the Gospel of Christ,”
“If you want to be saved and be a Christian, then stay open to correction. Preachers have to rebuke, or they should leave their position. The Christian who won’t accept correction is only pretending to be a Christian.”
“We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace.”