If we ask God earnestly that His will may become a fact on earth, that His nature may be revealed in work, that His rulership may lead men to unity, righteousness and love, then our life will become work. Faith without works is dead. Prayer without work is hypocrisy. The Lord’s Prayer without the way of God’s kingdom is a lie. The prayer of Jesus wants to bring us to the point where its words are turned into deeds, so that the prayer becomes action and history.
- Eberhard Arnold
Selected Reading
The Danger of Prayer
Eberhard Arnold
What is the true meaning of prayer, and how can it have power to transform our lives? In this devotion, Eberhard Arnold describes the kind of prayer that pleases God, and he challenges us to rediscover the prayer that can change our lives and our world.
Poems and Rhymed Prayers
Eberhard Arnold
In 1920 Eberhard and Emmy Arnold abandoned the security of the Berlin suburbs for a new life in the village of Sannerz. Here they embarked on what Eberhard called an “adventure of faith” – a life of voluntary poverty and community. His poems from this time reflect the new beginning, expressing the joy and the struggles of the fledgling circle, yet still encompassing a wider vision, and the continued call of a life lived for God.
The Church Comes Down to Us
Eberhard Arnold
Eberhard Arnold always emphasized Gemeinde – the living congregation of believers – over Kirche, the church as an institution or establishment. In a series of talks given in response to a letter from his friend, the Swiss Religious Socialist Leonard Ragaz, Eberhard talks about this question.
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Quick Quotes
The purpose of our gathering for prayer is to call upon God to come to us and implore his Spirit to come down, to call Christ into our midst, not only for ourselves, but for the great events in the wide world. The reason we live in community is so that we may come before God with the power to pray and so that thereby world history may take a decisive turn, through the return of Christ, right through the end-time.
- Eberhard Arnold
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