A Quote by Martin Luther

The secret of contentment is the realization that life is a gift, not a right. Next to faith this is the highest art - to be content with the calling in which God has placed you.
Art is the gift of God, and must be used unto His glory. That in art is highest which aims at this.
Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I am strongly persuaded that after theology, there is no art which can be placed on the level with music.
Art is the pure realization of religious feeling, capacity for faith, longing for God. ... The ability to believe is our outstanding quality, and only art adequately translates it into reality. But when we assuage our need for faith with an ideology we court disaster.
If it be true that spirit is involved in Matter and apparent Nature is secret God, then the manifestation in the divine in himself and the realization of God within and without are the highest and most legitimate aim possible to man on earth.
The apostles were very sure that everything of theirs which had to do with salvation was a gift to them from God. 'Increase our faith'. They did not presume that the fullness of faith would come to them merely because they freely opted for it. They believed, rather, that it was a gift of God which would have to be granted to them.
We can mention only one point (which experience confirms), namely, that next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise. No greater commendation than this can be found — at least not by us. After all, the gift of language combined with the gift of song was only given to man to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, namely, by proclaiming [the Word of God] through music.
Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work: this is the short formula in which we may sum up the teachings of the founders of New England,--a creed ample enough for this life and the next.
Faith, faith, faith in ourselves, faith, faith in God, this is the secret of greatness.If you have faith in all the three hundred and thirty millions of your mythological Gods, and in all the Gods which foreigners have now and again introduced into your midst, and still have no faith in yourselves, there is no salvation for you.
People think of faith as being something that you don't really believe, a device in helping you believe simply it. Of course that is quite wrong. As Pascal says, faith is a gift of God. It is different from the proof of it. It is the kind of faith God himself places in the heart, of which the proof is often the instrument... He says of it, too, that it is the heart which is aware of God, and not reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not be reason.
Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God's greatest gift to man.
Our choosing the right consistently whenever the choice is placed before us creates the solid ground under our faith. It can begin in childhood, since every soul is born with the free gift of the Spirit of Christ. With that Spirit we can know when we have done what is right before God and when we have done wrong in His sight.
The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.
The highest act of love is the giving of the best gift, and, if necessary, at the greatest cost, to the least deserving. That's what God did. At the loss of His Son's life to the totally undeserving, God gave the best gift - the display of the glory of Christ who is the image of God.
Art in its execution and direction is dependent on the time in which it lives, and artists are creatures of their epoch. The highest art will be that which in its conscious content presents the thousandfold problems of the day, the art which has been visibly shattered by the explosions of last week The best and most extraordinary artists will be those who every hour snatch the tatters of their bodies out of the frenzied cataract of life, who, with bleeding hands and hearts, hold fast to the intelligence of their time.
Faith then, in its relation to salvation, is that confidence by which we accept it as a free gift from the Saviour, and is the only possible way in which the gift of God could be appropriated.
We should know that faith is a gift of God, and that it may not be given to men, except it be graciously. Thus, indeed, all the good which we have is of God; and accordingly, when God rewardeth a good work of man, he crowneth his own gift.
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