Best 22 quotes of M. Basilea Schlink on MyQuotes

By our everyday actions, by our unwillingness to admit our mistakes and sins, we Christians have declared God dead - perhaps without even realizing it. For is we no longer want to humble ourselves before God and man, acknowledging our sins, if we no longer want to repent, we do not need a living Savior.

Everyone hungers for a foretaste of heaven. The word "heaven" strikes a note in everyone's heart, for all men are Adam's children, driven out of paradise, but still cherishing a deep desire for the lost paradise.

He has been waiting for us, waiting in vain, and His fatherly heart was filled with grief. When He then sought to call us home through chastenings, we rebelled against Him and His actions and again refused to come home to the Father. What else should He do with us?

How quick we are to reject what others tell us! How fast we are to cast the blame on others, saying they always criticize us and find fault with us, they are not satisfied with anything we do, they do not understand us. But if we cannot accept anything others tell us, we are proud. The humble want to hear what others tell them. They have the courage to hear the truth about themselves and to admit that they need to change. Whether it is a small matter or a big matter, they say, "Yes, it is true. I need to turn over a new leaf.

If we are discouraged because we lack repentance and excuse ourselves by saying that it does not lie in our power to obtain a contrite heart, because repentance can only be granted as a miracle of the Holy Spirit, it is a sign that our thinking has been clouded by the Enemy.

Is it not shameful to accept God's blessings as though they were our due without thinking of the heart of the Giver, who planned them all in love for us, and giving Him the response of love and gratitude?

Only penitent sinners, who are granted forgiveness, are set on fire with love for Jesus. So I can testify how impoverished a life without daily repentance is. Heaven does not draw near. The radiance of joy is missing. There is no adoration or songs of praise. Love for Jesus is not burning in one's heart. There is no power in one's ministry, and it bears no fruit.

Only repentance can save us from spiritual death and lead us to eternal life, and only repentance lets us have a foretaste of this divine life here and now.

Only those who are alive can bring life to others. The spiritually dead are unable to generate life, because there is no life in them. They cannot be a testimony to others by their deeds. They are simply dead. Whoever does not live in repentance belongs to the spiritually dead, who cannot bring anyone to life. But the penitent are full of life, divine life; and they can bring others to life. Whenever someone repents, he scarcely needs to say a word. He doesn't need to preach at others. Rather, when he lies prostrate before God and man and confesses with a broken and contrite heart, "I have sinned; I am guilty," his words have the power of life. They can open the hardest hearts and bring to life the spiritually dead.

Our repentance should begin with the fact that we have no longer taken the Word of God seriously and have not come to repentance. We dared to use our own standards and were satisfied when we lived up to them. We are like the Pharisees. Outwardly we participate in Christian activities, perhaps even enthusiastically...And we think that this is enough. We use our own yardstick. But God will measure our lives according to His standards, and we shall have no excuse when we appear before His judgment seat, for He has clearly proclaimed His standards in His Word.

People say, "How can God let that happen? How can God remain silent about all the wicked things that happen on earth, about all the terrible crimes that are committed?" And here again self-righteousness makes us blind and deaf. We no longer perceive how God speaks in judgment through wars and all the other troubles in the world. Yes, He is speaking powerfully. Such judgments are His last attempt to win us back in love.

Repentance is the gateway through which the Gospel can come to us. Repentance is the gateway to a joy-filled life with Christ, for it is the prerequisite for attaining forgiveness, and wherever forgiveness is received, there is salvation and joy.

Self-justification - that is, claiming one's innocence and thus in the final analysis blaming God - is an inheritance we have received from Adam and Eve. Even the worst criminals have this urge to exonerate themselves. They claim innocence in the face of the most heinous crimes. Prison chaplains write that there is no place like prison to find so many self-righteous people, maintaining that they are actually innocent. They think they have been imprisoned unjustly. We human beings have an excuse for everything and thus we see no reason why we should repent and turn from our ways. If we think we are in the right, that we have good reason to justify ourselves and say that we are not guilty, why should we repent?

Sinners with broken and contrite hearts have but one desire. Filled with thanksgiving, they want to love Him who loved them so much. They are so overwhelmed that He has borne their sins and carried them away. When we receive forgiveness, our hearts are so filled with joy that we cannot help but love Him with a lavish love. We cannot help but give our lives to Him who gave His life for us and set us free from the prison of sin. We cannot stop thanking Him, and so we do everything possible to bring Him joy and to bestow our gifts upon Him, serving Him with all our talents and strength. And this is what heaven is all about: centering upon Jesus and loving Him above all else.

The human heart has a way of thinking that it is always in the right and has no need to weep over its sins. By nature, we are self-confident and impenitent. We blame others or even accuse God when we do not understand His ways.

The increasing lawlessness and the fact that love has grown cold - signs that Jesus specifically named for the end times (Matthew 24:12) - are put aside by the Church as being of no great importance, although the unprecedented facts and examples are alarming. We need to call to mind certain trends in the past years. The soaring crime rate. The glorification of brutality and perverse forms of sex. The increase in drugs, which have already claimed millions of addicts. The alarming growth of involvement in occult activities, and in spiritism and even satanic cults. And all this is taking place in "Christian" nations, yes, mainly in these countries, and even in their churches. Who takes this as a challenge to pray, fast and repent?

The spirit of contrition and repentance has by and large become foreign to us. Repentance implies a turning to God. Instead of repenting, however, we demand that God adjust to our modern concepts. Because the spirit of contrition and repentance is missing, church services , evangelizations and other Christian meetings often lack power and cannot move the listeners to tears of contrition. How very much we, the members of the Body of Christ, have hardened our hearts! We no longer want to see sin for what it is. When God is dishonoured and blasphemed and His commandments are abandoned, we do not regard it as such. Nor do we see that when God Himself is declared dead in His Church and His commandments are no longer regarded as binding, these are the signs of the times that Jesus said we should watch for.

This sin weighs heavily upon the Body of Christ and will call down the judgment of God. In Germany there is an even greater sin weighing upon us Christians and that is the crime our nation has committed against Israel, God's chosen people. Six million Jews were killed; because of this the wrath of God is upon us. As Christians we are especially to blame. For when the terrible crime occurred and millions of Jews were tortured with inhuman cruelty and killed at the hands of German people, the Church in our country remained silent. The Christians did not stand up as the Danes did and protest the injustice. With the exception of a number of individuals the church members were not driven by the desire to help the Jews at all costs. Nor did they ring the church bells the night the synagogues were burnt down. The Church gave no reaction - an indication that she was dead. Because we were silent, we heaped guilt upon ourselves, and we were struck by the judgment that later descended upon our nation. Our churches were destroyed. Germans were killed by the thousands in bombings. Refugees thronged the streets, and the Iron Curtain divided our country.

Thus the penitent are actually sincere, truthful and realistic. They sorrow for their sins before it it too late, unlike others who neglect to do so and will be sorry for their sins for all eternity. They are grieved over their sins now, so that they can turn over a new leaf and begin to lead a new and different life.

To be spiritually alive is to live in repentance. Spiritually dead are those Christians who never weep over their sins or who have long ceased to do so. Dead - in God's eyes - are those Christians who can no longer rejoice over God's forgiveness. Whenever this joy is missing, even if we may call ourselves committed Christians, there is something wrong in our lives.

We are apathetic and indifferent towards our sins, and we are usually not disturbed by them at all. We are more likely to weep over what is done to us, or over difficult leadings. We weep over our sorrows, troubles and disappointments. Each one of us does so, for this is our human nature. But not everyone comes to the point of true contrition and repentance and weeps over his sins. Such reactions are foreign to human nature. The human heart has a way of thinking that it is always in the right and has no need to weep over its sins. By nature, we are self-confident and impenitent. We blame others or even accuse God when we do not understand His ways.

With the word "Repent" He was beckoning to us as the Savior, offering us His love and salvation. But behind this word we can also see the grief of God that His children have turned away from Him.