After death something new begins, over which all powers of the world of death have no more might.

Only where God is can there be a new beginning. We cannot command God to grant it; we can only pray to God for it.

At the beginning of a new year, many people have nothing better to do than to make a list of bad deeds and resolve from now on—how many such "from-now-ons" have there already been!—to begin with better intentions, but they are still stuck in the middle of their paganism.

But because Jesus is the Christ, it has to be made clear from the beginning that his word is not a doctrine . Instead, it creates existence anew.

It is solely the form of Christ that matters, not any form besides Christ's own. The church is the human being who has become human, has been judged, and has been awakened to new life in Christ.

Jesus Christ in his word must be our death and our life.

If we would follow Jesus we must take certain definite steps. The first step, which follows the call, cuts the disciple off from his previous existence. The call to follow at once produces a new situation. To stay in the old situation makes discipleship impossible.

The great mystery of our metaphysical situation, that God is nearer to us than we are ourselves, is manifest in the fact that we cannot even be wholly ourselves—in the sense of individuality as a unique divine thought—until we are reborn in Christ.

I was twenty years old at the time. Three years earlier I had experienced for the first time the new life, the love, the joy of knowing Jesus Christ in a personal way. A crisis came, I called upon Him, and suddenly He was there, alive! In fact, two thousand years had not aged Him a bit! I found He still had the same power to transform men's lives and hold their loyalty that He had manifested in the Gospels two millenniums before.

If you can forgive the person you were, accept the person you are, and believe in the person you will become, you are headed for joy. So celebrate your life.

The soul knows everything. Be who you are and your life will transform forever.

America is the land of the second chance - and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.