03 March 2010

The Relaxation Inspires the Effort

The man who is relaxed because of what God has done for him will through that relaxation lose his preoccupation with self and forget himself, and be prompted into fruitfulness. . . . It is precisely the relaxation that inspires to effort. . . . Only he who no longer needs to serve himself with his works is able, since he is now free from himself, to do really 'good works,' works that mean something for the Other and the others.

--Hendrikus Berkhof, Dutch theologian who died in 1995, in Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Study of the Faith (trans. Sierd Woudstra; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 453; cf. 473

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