Quotes from Dallas Willard

You are an unceasing spiritual being, created for an intimate and transforming friendship with the creative Community that is the Trinity.

The narrow gate is not, as so often assumed, doctrinal correctness. The narrow gate is obedience—and the confidence in Jesus necessary to it. We

Magnify His providence; adore His power, pray to Him frequently and incessantly. Bear Him always in your mind. Teach your thoughts to reverence Him in every place for there is no place where He is not. Therefore, my child, fear and worship and love God; first and last, think magnificently of Him! —PATERNUS, ADVICE TO A SON

The people who love God with all their heart are those whose will is totally devoted to what is good for God.

To manipulate, drive or manage people is not the same thing as to lead them. To

Nowhere is it more important to be in a conversational relationship with God than in our prayer life.

He teaches us how to be in prayer what we are in life and how to be in life what we are in prayer.

An act of faith in the biblical tradition is always undertaken in an environment of knowledge and is inseparable from it.

plan for putting to death or mortifying

As I often point out to folks, today we are not only saved by grace, we are paralyzed by it. We will preach to you for an hour that you can do nothing to be saved, and then sing to you for forty-five minutes trying to get you to do something to be saved. That is confusing, to say the least.

This time of reflection should also include thanksgiving for all the ways the day went well.

The lamp that is aglow in the obedient life will shine. The city set on the hill cannot be hid. Obedience to Christ from the heart and by the Spirit is such a radical reality that those who live in it automatically realize the unity that can never be achieved by direct efforts at union.

May you experience grace—God acting in your life, in your thoughts, in your feelings, in your rest. May his face shine upon you. May his shining face lift up over you as you lie down, as you sleep, and give you the thoughts you need to have. The blessing of the Trinity rest upon you and everything you are and do. Let it be so. Amen.

God does not delight in having to always explain what his will is; he enjoys it when we understand

As you engage with others, ask Jesus to bless them. You can consciously will the peace, joy, and confidence that you are experiencing to pass from you, like "living waters," to those with whom you are interacting.

our relationship with Jesus, which he argued ultimately allows us to establish a relationship with the kingdom of God. This relationship is one of discipleship in which we learn to live our lives as Jesus would through progressively embodying and manifesting a Christlike character, which is attained through establishing a discipling relationship to Jesus.

What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of given facts or assumptions. It extends the information we have and enables us to see the "larger picture"—to see it clearly and to see it wholly. And it undermines false or misleading ideas and images as well. It reveals their falseness to those who wish to know.

Sit in the companionship of God—the one who shows up and can be seen.

A thoughtless or uninformed theology grips and guides our life with just as great a force as does a thoughtful and informed one.

They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting their feelings instead of that of not having them—of simply changing or replacing them.

So we do not have the strength we should have, and Jesus' commandments become overwhelmingly burdensome to us. In fact, many Christians cannot even believe he actually intended for us to carry them out. So what is the result? His teachings are treated as a mere ideal, one that we may better ourselves by aiming for but know we are bound to fall glaringly short of.

the real Jesus, as is now commonly said, is "one who identified with and loves oppressed people and those who are different," calling us to do the same. These words now express the redemptive vision of the Christian left, just as "trusted Christ for forgiveness" or "prayed to receive Jesus" does for the right.

That is, his death was a revelation of the nature of basic reality. Without knowledge of it and its meaning, we are desperately ignorant of reality, and therefore all our thinking can only result in monstrous falsehoods.

de amar a Dios con todo nuestro ser, y ello por la belleza de Dios que se nos da en Cristo. Este es el segundo movimiento en respuesta al amor: «Nosotros amamos, porque Él nos amó primero.» Pero el segundo movimiento es inseparable del tercero: nuestro amor hacia quienes aman a Dios. «Si nos amamos