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Dallas Willard QUOTES

Dallas Willard QUOTES

1 " The cautious faith that never saws off a limb on which it is sitting, never learns that unattached limbs may find strange unaccountable ways of not falling. "

― Dallas Willard

2 " We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

3 " The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes- a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low. "

― Dallas Willard , The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

4 " Jesus never expected us simply to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, bless those who persecute us, give unto them that ask, and so forth. These responses, generally and rightly understood to be characteristic of Christlikeness, were put forth by him as illustrative of what might be expected of a new kind of person – one who intelligently and steadfastly seeks, above all else, to live within the rule of God and be possessed by the kind of righteousness that God himself has, as Matthew 6:33 portrays. Instead, Jesus did invite people to follow him into that sort of life from which behavior such as loving one’s enemies will seem like the only sensible and happy thing to do. For a person living that life, the hard thing to do would be to hate the enemy, to turn the supplicant away, or to curse the curser… True Christlikeness, true companionship with Christ, comes at the point where it is hard not to respond as he would. "

― Dallas Willard

5 " Great power requires great character if it is to be a blessing and not a curse, and that character is something we only grow toward. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

6 " We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true. "

― Dallas Willard , Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ

7 " We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than the one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

8 " Many people have found prayer impossible because they thought they should only pray for wonderful but remote needs they actually had little or no interest in or even knowledge of. Prayer simply dies from efforts to pray about ‘good things’ that honestly do not matter to us. The way to get to meaningful prayer for those good things is to start by praying for what we are truly interested in. The circle of our interests will inevitably grow in the largeness of God’s love.” --Dallas Willard "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

9 " (God's) nature, identity, and overarching purposes are no doubt unchanging. But his intentions with regard to many particular matters that concern individual human beings are not. This does not diminish him. Far from it. He would be a lesser God if he could not change his intentions when he thinks it is appropriate. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

10 " Our failure to hear His voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

11 " Play is the creation of value that is not necessary. "

― Dallas Willard

12 " The union Christ had with the Father was the greatest that we can conceive of in this life—if indeed we can conceive of it. Yet we have no indication that even Jesus was constantly awash with revelations as to what he should do. His union with the Father was so great that he was at all times obedient. This obedience was something that rested in his mature will and understanding of his life before God, not on always being told “Now do this” and “Now do that” with regard to every details of his life or work. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

13 " There is no question of doing is purely on our own. But we must act. Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. And it is well-directed, decisive, and sustained effort that is the key to the keys of the kingdom and to the life of restful power in ministry and life that those keys open to us. "

― Dallas Willard , The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus's Essential Teachings on Discipleship

14 " There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas This is never more true than with our ideas about God. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

15 " Our search for safety and contentment is endless and inexhaustible precisely because of the intrinsic futility of relying on human abilities to provide resolution to our problems. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy Continued: Fulfilling God's Kingdom on Earth

16 " Multitudes are now turning to Christ in all parts of the world. How unbearably tragic it would be, though, if the millions of Asia, South America and Africa were led to believe that the best we can hope for from the Way of Christ is the level of Christianity visible in Europe and America today, a level that has left us tottering on the edge of world destruction. The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes-a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message TOO LOW. "

― Dallas Willard , The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

17 " He is not just nice, he is brilliant. He is the smartest man who ever lived. He is now supervising the entire course of world history (Rev. 1:5) while simultaneously preparing the rest of the universe for our future role in it (John 14:2). He always has the best information on everything and certainly also on the things that matter most in human life. Let us now hear his teachings on who has the good life, on who is among the truly blessed. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

18 " The idea of having faith in Jesus has come to be totally isolated from being his apprentice and learning how to do what he said. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

19 " Jesus, Willard says, “does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him. "

― Dallas Willard , The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

20 " Individually the disciple and friend of Jesus who has learned to work shoulder to shoulder with his or her Lord stands in this world as a point of contact between heaven and earth, a kind of Jacob’s ladder by which the angels of God may ascend from and descend into human life. Thus the disciple stands as an envoy or a receiver by which the kingdom of God is conveyed into every quarter of human affairs. "

― Dallas Willard , Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God