Quotes from Dallas Willard

those who understand Jesus and his Father know that provision has been made for them. Their confidence has been confirmed by their experience. Though they work, they do not worry about things "on earth." Instead, they are always "seeking first the kingdom." That is, they "place top priority on identifying and involving themselves in what God is doing and in the kind of rightness [dikaiosune] he has. All

disease, scarcity, and weather-related disasters.

Often a good starting point when trying to help those who do not believe in God or accept Christ as Lord is to get them to deal honestly with the question: Would I like for there to be a God? Or, would I like it if Jesus turned out to be Lord? This may help them realize the extent to which what they want to be the case is controlling their ability to see what is the case.

To be simple, humble, and thoughtful as we listen to others and help them come to faith in the One who has given us life.

You will consume much more grace by leading a holy life than you will by sinning, because every holy act you do will have to be upheld by the grace of God.

It is one of the curiosities of Western intellectual history that, during the last century or so, those with no serious involvement with practical Christianity—maybe totally ignorant of it or even hostile to it—have been allowed, under the guise of "scholarship" or innovative thought, to define what religion is and to reinterpret Christian teachings in the light of their own biased definitions and purposes.

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed" (2 Corinthians 9:8).

Now, Jesus himself was and is a joyous, creative person. He does not allow us to continue thinking of our Father who fills and overflows space as a morose and miserable monarch, a frustrated and petty parent, or a policeman on the prowl.

Full participation in the life of God's Kingdom and in the vivid companionship of Christ comes to us only through appropriate exercise in the disciplines for life in the spirit. Those disciplines alone can become for average Christians the conditions upon which the spiritual life is made indubitably real.

Unlike egotism, the drive to significance is a simple extension of the creative impulse of God that gave us being. It is not filtered through self-consciousness any more than is our lunge to catch a package falling from someone's hand. It is outwardly directed to the good to be done. We were built to count, as water is made to run downhill. We are placed in a specific context to count in ways no one else does. That is our destiny.

Third, the "correcting" to be done is not a matter of "straightening them out." It is not a matter of hammering on their wrongness and on what is going to happen to them if they don't change their ways. It is a matter of restoration. The

contemporary wording of Jesus's comparison of God's kind of love, agape, and what normally passes for love might be "What's so great if you love those who love you? Terrorists do that! If that's all your 'love' amounts to, God certainly is not involved. Or suppose you are friendly to 'our kind of people.' So is the Mafia!" (Matthew 5:46–47).

Very few people today find Jesus interesting as a person or of vital relevance to the course of their actual lives. He is not generally regarded as a real-life personality who deals with real-life issues but is thought to be concerned with some feathery realm other than the one we must deal with, and must deal with now. And frankly, he is not taken to be a person of much ability.

This is the essence of the death-to-self life: that we should no longer live for ourselves, but for him who died for us and rose again.

Anger and condemnation like vengeance, are safely left to God. We must beware of believing that it is okay for us to condemn as long as we are condemning the right things. It is not so simple as all that. I can trust Jesus to go into the temple and drive out those who were profiting from religion, beating them with a rope. I cannot trust myself to do so.

Set aside days to spend alone with God to seek his face and to imagine that face shining with joy as it looks at you. As the ancient Jewish benediction puts it: The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you [look right at you] And give you peace. (NUM. 6:24–26)

The spirit and the manner of the Chief Shepherd should be the one adopted by the undershepherds.

knowledge is the basis of belief, and, when it is, it gives the belief a very different bearing upon life.

It is the experience of having God look you right in the eye and saying, "I love you! I approve of you!" that is the unshakable ground of our self-worth.

But myth making, as it turns out, is not the sole prerogative of religion. It is also a very active secular and academic pastime—and a human one as well; perhaps it is some kind of human necessity.

keep a right heart we must remember that the face of God shining upon us in gracious approval is the basis of our value.

What transforms us is the will to obey Jesus Christ from a life that is one with his resurrected reality day by day, learning obedience through inward transformation.

Quite candidly, if it is possible for our faith and works to be hidden, perhaps that only shows they are of a kind that should be hidden. We might, in that case, think about directing our efforts toward the cultivation of a faith that is impossible to hide.

he ruined soul must be willing to recognize its own ruin before it can discover how to enter a different path