The heavenly blessing is to be delivered from the law, sin and death; to be justified and quickened to life: to have peace with God; to have a faithful heart, a joyful conscience, a spiritual consolation; to have the knowledge of Jesus Christ; to have the gift of prophecy, and the revelation of the Scriptures; to have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and to rejoice in God.

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God, your functional savior.

The first thing I ask is that people should not make use of my name, and should not call themselves Lutherans but Christians. What is Luther? The teaching is not mine. Nor was I crucified for anyone...How did I, poor stinking bag of maggots that I am, come to the point where people call the children of Christ by my evil name?

There are some of us who think to ourselves, 'If I had only been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby. I would have washed His linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!' Why don't we do it now? We have Christ in our neighbor.

Exhort your household to learn [the Ten Commandments] word for word, that they should obey God…For if you teach and urge your families things will go forward.

I simply taught, preached, wrote God's Word: otherwise I did nothing. The Word of God did it all.