Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or "Don't try to keep the rules and regulations in order to earn your salvation." He looked around at nearly slumbering collections of utterly casual Christians and wondered, "Who's trying?

I have a hard time picturing several aspects of the modern world without Luther.

God, through Jesus Christ, welcomes you anyhow.

If you go deep enough into any faith tradition, you find the common ground with all faith traditions.

A saint has to be a misfit. A person who embodies what his culture considers typical or normal cannot be exemplary.

Even the cry from the depths is an affirmation: Why cry if there is no hint of hope of hearing?

There is no reason to make the search for friendship sound like an animal instinct. Friendship does not always come as a result of a search; it can come when we least look for it, just as it denies itself when we pursue it too earnestly and with pathetic eagerness.