Quotes from Dallas Willard

if we think we are facing an irresistible cosmic force of evil, it will invariably lead to giving in and giving up—usually with very little resistance. If you can convince yourself that you are helpless, you can then stop struggling and just "let it happen." That will seem a great relief—for a while. You can once more be a normal human being. But then you will have to deal with the consequences. And for normal human beings those are very severe.

Disciplines are activities that are in our power and that enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

making sure to leave the evening free as the start of your time with Jesus.

we are in a time when thinking rightly is more important than ever. The prospering of God's cause on earth depends upon his people thinking well.

love is something that has three essential characteristics: 1.?Love arises in people whose lives are already marked by certain qualities of the whole self, chief of which are faith in our all-sufficient God and joyful embracing of death to self. 2.?Love involves an orientation of the whole self toward what is good and right. 3.?Love has amazing, supernatural power for good as it indwells the individual.

it helps to have some idea of what it would be like to go through a day with Jesus.

We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God's full world.

Indeed, by taking the title Son of man, he staked his claim to be all that the human being was originally supposed to be—and surely much more.

The miracle is not that God loves me; it would be a miracle if he didn't love me, because he is love. That is God's basic nature—a will to good.

Thus by proclaiming blessed those who in the human order are thought hopeless, and by pronouncing woes over those human beings regarded as well off, Jesus opens the kingdom of the heavens to everyone.

The Trinity is the model of life as it is intended to be in human existence, the basis for Christian community.

Let's remember that Jesus didn't leave Thomas to suffer without the blessing of faith and confidence; he gave him the evidence he required. That is typical of Jesus's approach to doubt; he responded to honest doubters in the way he knew best, the way that would help them to move from doubt to knowledge.

bodily habits are the primary form in which human evil exists in practical life is

God, I want to give You every minute of this year. I shall try to keep You in mind every moment of my waking hours. . . . I shall try to let You be the speaker and direct every word. I shall try to let You direct my acts. I shall try to learn Your language.

serving really involves giving people what is good for them, not merely pursuing their approval and granting their desires.

It is reasonable to expect that leading a divine conspiracy will require journalists, writers, artists, and scholars to carefully, accurately, and courageously expose the follies of our social institutions in government, business, religion, art, economics, engineering, medicine, law, finance, security, and education. This is where our Christian universities play perhaps the central role, if administrating the common flourishing is to occur in any meaningful way.

Art is lost in pop "art" as sport is lost in professional "sport"—which is an oxymoron of the strongest kind. Absurdity reigns, and confusion makes it look good.

You need to imagine what your day would look like with Jesus at your side—as he will be.

You have only to "stay tuned," and you can arrive at a perpetual state of confusion and, ultimately, despair with no effort at all.

The command "Be ye perfect" is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. C. S. LEWIS, MERE CHRISTIANITY

Strength to Please

As Frank Laubach says: "The simple program of Christ for winning the whole world is to make each person he touches magnetic enough with love to draw others."13 If we grow our fellowship in this direction, it will naturally affect those around us, whether in the fellowship or not. This kind of love and the "Presence" go with us wherever we go. They cannot be hidden.

The God-intended function of the will is to reach out to God in trust. By standing in the correct relation to God through our will we can receive grace that will properly reorder the soul along with the other five components of the self.

Standing in the kingdom, we make responsible decisions in love, with assurance that how things turn out for us does not really matter that much because, in any case, we are in the kingdom of the heavens. In that kingdom nothing that can happen to us is "the end of the world.