Quotes from Dallas Willard

The experience of missing a loved one is a small clue that we were made for eternity. Dallas would be the first to insist that the overarching point of his life was not his presence, but rather, like the intentionality of thoughts itself, the grand and beautiful realities he was pointing to. It's all there, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, minds to think and hearts to feel. The rest is the adventure of our lives.

The heart, or will, simply is spirit in human beings. It is the human spirit, and the only thing in us that God will accept as the basis of our relationship to him. It is the spiritual plane of our natural existence, the place of truth before God, from where alone our whole lives can become eternal.

If we do seek him, he will certainly find us, and then we, ever more deeply, find him.

Discipleship is for the sake of the world, not for the sake of the church. It is carried out in those situations where people spend their life.

The life alienated from God collapses when deprived of its support from the sin-laden world. But the life in tune with God is actually nurtured by time spent alone.

great part of our growth includes disengaging from the expectations of others.

We don't consume the merits of Christ or the services of the church. We are participants, not spectators. Accordingly

Concretely, we intend to live in the kingdom of God by intending to obey the precise example and teachings of Jesus. This is the form that trust in him takes. It does not take the form of merely believing things about him, however true they may be. Indeed, no one can actually believe the truth about him without trusting him by intending to obey him.

the governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be "Christians" forever and never become disciples.

We are bringing forth the sons and daughters of God to live their unique lives in this world to his glory. We must do all we can to suit the means we employ to that end.

How does Paul describe the mind caught up in the world? Futile, full of things that do not matter, darkened, blind.

In short, nondiscipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul.

whole life in the will of God: the question of who God wants us to be as well as what he wants us to do (where appropriate). What

But what do these theologians really accomplish with their revised view of God—other than aligning themselves with a view of natural reality and life that they can take to be more scientific? Is it not simply the destruction of any workable sense in which God and Jesus are persons, now alive and accessible, standing in an interactive relationship with those who rely on them?

God wants us to participate in the governance of his kingdom.

Robbed of its reference to a transcendent spiritual being or substance that nonetheless personally engages with humanity while holding them responsible to its specific directives on how to live, this "love" ("God") has no recourse but to become whatever the current ideology says it is. Currently that means not treating people as different, while liberating them and enabling them to do what they want.

Dying to self does not exclude having a proper sense of self-worth, including the need to feel recognized and valued. Recognition from others is a good and proper thing. But it must not be what controls our lives. It must not become the goal of our existence. If we find that our need for recognition is consuming our thoughts and determining our behavior, then we need to move to a higher source for our sense of our personal worth. That source is, of course, God's love for us.

The Bible is the unique written Word of God. It is inerrant in its original form and infallible in all of its forms for the purpose of guiding you into a life-saving relationship with God in His kingdom. The Bible contains a body of knowledge without which human beings cannot survive. It reliably fixes the boundaries of everything God will ever say to humankind.

Much, not all, of the anti-government sentiment in the United States today is thinly veiled hatred of law and exaltation of brutal self-will. Thus it easily slips over into "righteous wrongdoing.

Memorization is an essential element of a life without lack. It is a primary way we fill our minds with the Word of God and have our thoughts formed by God's thoughts.

The damage done to our practical faith in Christ and in his government-at-hand by confusing heaven with a place in distant or outer space, or even beyond space, is incalculable. Of course God is there too. But instead of heaven and God also being always present with us, as Jesus shows them to be, we invariably take them to be located far away and, most likely, at a much later time—not here and not now. And we should then be surprised to feel ourselves alone?

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. —FRANK LAUBACH

We settle back into de facto alienation of our religion from Jesus as a friend and teacher, and from our moment-to-moment existence as a holy calling or appointment with God. Some will substitute ritual behavior for divine vitality and personal integrity; others may be content with an isolated string of "experiences" rather than transformation of character.

Jesus and his words have never belonged to the categories of dogma or law, and to read them as if they did is simply to miss them.