Kirby Page - God Quotes

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Anything that deprives a man of real life is an enemy to that man. If real life is relationship, the dwelling on friendly and affectionate terms with God and man, then anything that separates us from God, from our better selves, and from our fellows, is an enemy. Another name for this enemy is sin. It is sin that wrecks the characters of men and deprives them of their spiritual heritage. Sin is the most subtle, treacherous, and deadly of all foes. It is the destroyer of real life.

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Should a patriot, in an endeavor to defend his country and to preserve high values, be willing to perpetrate atrocities upon women and children of other lands, accept the doctrine that the end justifies the means, follow the practice of military necessity, inflame passions through distortion and falsehood, bow down before a god of war, and forsake the way of Jesus?

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Jesus teaches the kinship and equality of all children of God. No division of race or color, class or caste, rich or poor, male or female, is found in the teaching of Jesus.

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When we are reminded that modern men find it difficult to believe in the divinity of Jesus, we urge a search for realities that are far greater than words. If Jesus gives us our clearest vision of the nature of God; if he reveals the godlike qualities in man; if he secures penitence, restitution, joyous allegiance, and heroic sacrifice; if he leads to deliverance for individuals and groups—he becomes a symbol for all that is noblest in the universe, whatever may be the title by which he is characterized.

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It is significant that the Great Teacher does not draw up a code of laws or list or sins. Nowhere does Jesus say explicitly that human slavery is a sin, or that the employment of little children for fourteen hours a day in a factory is a sin. He deals in general principles concerning the great fundamentals of life. So clear is his teaching, however, that there can be no doubt as to what he thinks of human slavery or the oppression of little children. In the teaching of Jesus, life is relationship, dwelling on friendly and affectionate terms with God, with ourselves, and with our fellowmen. Anything which destroys this relationship is sin. By this standard any thought or act may safely be judged.

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If reverence for personality, the principle of mutuality, active goodwill, and love toward God and man constitute the essence of high religion, then in many situations, in an imperfect world, compulsion becomes a religious obligation.

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Every person is a child of God and a brother of man. Therefore personality is the supreme value, and should be regarded as an end and not merely as a means to an end.

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Every basic doctrine of Christianity is nullified to the degree that we accept the ideas and practices of atomic war: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, the inestimable value of human life, the kinship of all peoples, the duty and privilege of of sympathy and compassion and affection, the responsibility of the strong to bear the burdens of the weak, the overcoming of evil with goodness, the redemptive power of self-giving love, the supremacy of spiritual forces over material might.

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The Bible is a progressive revelation of God, and war must be judged by the higher revelation of Jesus and the New Testament, rather than by the former conception of David and the Old Testament.

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An infant crying in the crib can better appreciate the character of its mother than we can fathom the full nature of God.

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Jesus assumes the wisdom, power, love, and accessibility of God. Without attempting to prove these attributes, he simply acts as if their truth were beyond dispute.

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Was Tolstoy justified in interpreting the Sermon on the Mount in anarchistic terms? The answer cannot be found in isolated texts or combinations thereof, but rather in consideration of the basic elements which together constitute the religion of Jesus.... The Golden Rule of conduct was phrased in terms of mutuality: "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The true criterion of every thought and deed must, therefore, be found in its effects upon human personality, human relations, and communion between man and God.

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When we are reminded of his apocalyptic concepts and are told that an interim ethic possesses little validity for distant centuries, we are able to make rejoinder that his experience of God, his valuation of man, his call to love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are universal and eternal.

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There is something more in life... No man has reached the maximum capacity for self-preservation and growth, no man has attained the full measure of conscious spiritual existence, no man has entered into the deepest communion with God or is entirely devoted to his service.

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The belief that the gods delighted especially in the gift of human blood was responsible for the widespread custom of offering up captured enemies, and sometimes even friends and relatives, upon the alter. A vast chasm separates this conception from the present belief in God as an ethical person, holy and righteous beyond comparison, who has boundless affection for his children, who seeks in every way possible to help them, and who longs to enter into a deeper companionship with them.

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Non-resistance in the sense of rejecting all forms of coercion is not always a legitimate expression of love toward man and love toward God.... the refusal under some circumstances to exercise forcible restraint is a betrayal of love and therefore a betrayal of higher religion.

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By what name shall we call this animating principle of the universe, this source of all phenomana? Some call it Force or Energy or Mind, others call it God. Some call this idea a working hypothesis, others call it Faith.

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Thou art—what? Let the still small voice of God help you to fill it in. Must the answer be, thou art—impure, intemperate, dishonest, untruthful, irreverent, blasphemous, selfish, covetous, careless, unkind, lukewarm, lazy, ungrateful, unforgiving, filled with hypocrisy, defeated, a slave? Thou art—. Be honest. Fill it in.

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Hatred is an essential part of war. During the conflict it is regarded as treason to "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you." In war, the enemy are regarded as targets, not as sons of God.

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When we pray, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth," we are praying for the abolition of individualism and the coming of the higher individuality through collective action as members of God's Home on earth. "If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed.... For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, and whoever, for My sake and for the sake of the Good News, will lose his life shall save it." "Make me a captive, Lord, then shall I be free!" Truly, freedom can be preserved only by throwing it away! And individuality can reach its highest level only through the collectivism of the beloved community!

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At every stage Jesus was confronted with the necessity of choosing. More and more clearly he saw the vast gulf between his ideal and the practices of those about him. In moments of exaltation he caught a vision of life as it ought to be and might be.... From each succeeding experience of communion with God the conviction became more intense that love alone can bring reconciliation between man and man, and between man and God.

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If men of our age will saturate themselves daily in the mind of Christ, will vividly recall the nobility of his manner of life, and will spend time in conscious communion with the God he so luminously reveals, life will take on richer meanings, and the task of building the new society will become more joyous and challenging.

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God is Father of all mankind and is seeking to create a community in which His children will dwell together harmoniously and cooperatively as beloved kinsmen. Therefore attitudes and practices which debase personality or embitter human relations must be avoided.

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The worshiping of other things, the showing of disrespect by thought, word, or deed, and the refusal to acknowledge our obligation to him—these things shut God out from our lives.

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In the first century and in the twentieth, the individual Christian must determine his own course of action in the light of the spirit and teaching of Jesus. He gave Peter, James and John no definite program or mechanism by which they could overcome slavery, idolatry, licentiousness, and militarism, and he gives the Christian of today no scheme of overcoming militarism and oppression. It is by lives lived in the spirit of human brotherhood and worship toward God that he seeks to overcome slavery and idolatry, and it is by lives of aggressive good-will and love at all times and under all circumstances that he seeks to overcome militarism and oppression.

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