The love to Jesus, this burning personal love to God who has made himself known to us, is and remains the witness to the unity of all-embracing life. This love as the deepest and most heartfelt personal relationship finds its living expression in calling upon the One it loves. The truth and force of this love, however, lies in the decisive fact that it is God, really God, whom it meets in Christ. One who really believes in God as He is and works, will be urged again and again to communicate with Him.
- Eberhard Arnold
Selected Reading
Who Is My Mother? Who Are My Brothers?
Eberhard Arnold
We find Jesus' mother, who had previously seemed to separate herself from him, waiting with all the others for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and for the creation of the first communal church at Pentecost. From then on she belonged fully to the circle of those who believed in her Son.
Continue ReadingQuick Quotes
Our efforts always belong to God’s work, even when it is only to keep the manger prepared in which the Child wants to lie. Our deeds count, even when like Simeon we only stretch out our arms in patience and faith and in loyal endurance so that we may receive the holy gift. Even when we only wait, poor and yearning in the darkness, in fervent longing – we are ready and may help to bring about the fullness of time.
- Eberhard Arnold
Utterly new and unexpected, new life pervades the believers as Jesus’ words are fulfilled: to give up oneself means to win life. A new life, God’s true life, replaces the former selfish and ungenuine life. Those who love their life lose it; those who hate their life receive true life.
- Eberhard Arnold, 1918