Dallas Willard Quotes

Almost everything worth doing in human life is very difficult in its early stages and the good we are aiming at is never available at first, to strengthen us when we seem to need it most.

Spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.

Discipleship is the process of becoming who Jesus would be if he were you.

The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon.

The greatest challenge the church faces today is to be authentic disciples of Jesus.

Why doesn’t God just force us to do the things he knows to be right? It is because that would lose precisely that which he has intended in our creation: freely chosen character.

The key, then, to loving God is to see Jesus, to hold him before the mind with as much fullness and clarity as possible. It is to adore him.

The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.

What is thinking? It is the activity of searching out what must be true, or cannot be true, in the light of the given facts or assumptions.

The kingdom of God is the true ecology of the human soul.

It would be strange if we came to shun the genuine simply because it resembled the counterfeit.

A leader enables people to love and honor the role they play in the organization or group they are part of.

When the will is enslaved to a desire, it will in turn enslave the mind.

Play is the creation of value that is not necessary.

One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God.

A disciple is a person who has decided that the most important thing in their life is to learn how to do what Jesus said to do.

At the center of care for the heart is the love of God. This must be the joyful aim of our life.

As we mature in Christ, it is actually possible to outgrow fear.

What is reality? The answer Jesus gives to this question is: God and his kingdom. That is what you can count on and what you have to come to terms with.

Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it.

The people to whom we minister and speak will not recall 99 percent of what we say to them, but they will never forget the kind of persons we are.

God’s aim in human history is the creation of an inclusive community of loving persons, with himself included as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.

The first act of love is always the giving of attention.

In solitude we find psychic distance, the perspective from which we can see, in the light of eternity, the created things that trap, worry, and oppress us.

Feelings are good servants, but they are disastrous masters.

Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

Prayer is talking with God about what we are doing together.