Quote of the Day

If a drunkard signs the pledge, or a rich man gives all his money away, they are both of them freeing themselves from their slavery to alcohol or riches, but not from their bondage to themselves.  They are still moving in their own little orbit,  perhaps even more than the were before.  They are still subject to the commandment of works, still as submerged in the death of the old life as they were before.  Of course, the work has to be done, but of itself it can never deliver them from death, disobedience and ungodliness.  If we think our first step is the pre-condition for faith and grace, we are already judged by our work, and entirely excluded from grace.  Hence the term 'external work' includes everything we are accustomed to call 'disposition' or 'good intention.'  facere quod in se est.  If we take the first step with the deliberate intention of placing ourselves in the situation where faith is possible, even this possibility of faith will be nothing but a work.  The new life it opens to us is still a life within the limits of our old existence, and therefore a complete misapprehension of the true nature of the new life.  We are still in unbelief. 

 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer