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As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

Richard J. Foster

Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Integrity Life Live Reality
Inward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Order People Solitude
We over-eat, over-buy, and over-built, spewing out our toxic wastes upon the earth and into the air.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Air Earth Toxic Waste
The inner attitude of the heart is far more crucial than the mechanics for coming into the reality of the spiritual life.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Attitude Christian Spiritual
Pride is one of the socially acceptable sins in some corners of the evangelical culture. Its just straight-out ego gratification – how important I am; whether my name gets on the building or on the TV program or in the magazine article.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Ego Names Pride
In intellectual honesty, we should be willing to study and explore the spiritual life with all the rigor and determination we would give to any field of research.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Determination Honesty Spiritual
Prayer is – listening for the still small voice of God. Listening with the “ear of our hearts.”
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Heart Prayer Voice
If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Life Simple Things Thinking
Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects – and infects – every sphere of our living.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Doe Perfect Spheres
Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Emptiness Loneliness Solitude
Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Holy Obedience Worship
Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Age Satisfaction Spiritual
Our problem is that we assume prayer is something to master the way we master algebra or auto mechanics. But when praying, we come “underneath,” where we calmly and deliberately surrender control and become incompetent.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Assuming Prayer Way
..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately….Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

People Prayer Test
The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Intelligent Numbers People
Grace saves us from life without God-even more it empowers us for life with God.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Empowering God Grace
It is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores. This should not be. Of all people, we should be the most free, alive, interesting.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Hazards Interesting People
The person who does not seek the kingdom first does not seek it at all, regardless of how worthy the idolatry that he or she has substituted for it.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Doe Firsts Kingdoms
Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Falling Love Prayer Real
It is Stoicism that demands a closed universe, not the Bible.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Demand Stoicism Universe
As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Life Modern Needs Opiates
You see, we need instruction on how to possess money without being possessed by money. We need help to learn how to own things without treasuring them. We need the discipline that will allow us to live simply while managing great wealth and power.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Discipline Helping Needs
Spiritual direction is an interpersonal relationship in which we learn how to grow, live, and love in the spiritual life.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Grows Love Spiritual
Prayer involves transformed passions. In prayer, real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after Him: to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves, to will the things He wills.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Passion Prayer Real
You will never have time for prayer; you must make time.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Making Prayer Time
Prayer is simply saying “thank you, bless you, praise you.”
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Bless Praise Prayer
Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God’s great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.
RICHARD J. FOSTER

Evil Humanity Jesus

As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

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As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

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