“Should there be one among us who is oppressed by guilt and anxiety who simply cannot find peace and assurance of forgiveness, though he yearned for it and prayed for it again and again, that person ought simply to forgive his brother and his sister and in the name of Jesus simply leave off this everlasting spitefulness. Perhaps the only reason for all his peacelessness lies in the fact that he has simply accepted all the sermons and meditations on grace and mercy which he has heard and stored them away in his heart like buried treasure. He may perhaps, secretly and behind closed shutters, count up all these divine securities and assurances of grace over and over and still find no joy in it. They are nothing but dead spiritual capital. And finally he says–and quite rightly–‘All this is nothing but worthless paper that doesn’t help me one bit.’ God gives us real treasures; we are rich people, but only if we put this capital into use. Forgive your brother; then you will also get peace for yourself. Otherwise you are a dead spiritual capitalist.”
Helmut Thielicke, Christ and the Meaning of Life: A Book of Sermons and Meditations. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962, page 82.
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Gary Chorpenning's Notebooks 