Dallas Willard Quotes

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.

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.

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

Ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.

Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. First, what is our plan for making disciples? And second, does our plan work?

One of the hardest things in the world is to be right and not hurt other people with it.

Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs.

The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It's the person you become.

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 aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from...Circumcision of the heart.

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

Spiritual people are not those who engage in certain spiritual practices; they are those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God.

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

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.

Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, & loneliness.

The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer-the responses of our Father to our requests-our confidence in God's power spills over into other areas of our life.

I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.

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.

You can live opposite of what you profess, but you cannot live opposite of what you believe.

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.

Feelings are good servants, but they are disastrous masters.

You cannot trust Jesus in areas in which you don't think him competent.

God's address is at the end of your rope.

We are built to live in the kingdom of God. It is our natural habitat.

God may not guide us in an obvious way because he wants us to make decisions based on faith and character.

The will is transformed by experience, not information.

The hardest thing about leadership is the intimacy it requires.

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.

Theology is a part of our lives. It's unavoidable. A thoughtless theology guides our lives with just as much force as a thoughtful and informed one.

Disciples are those who have been so ravished with Christ that others want to be like them.

Fasting confirms our utter dependence upon God by finding in Him a source of sustenance beyond food.

If we do not make formation in Christ the priority, then we're just going to keep on producing Christians that are indistinguishable in their character from many non-Christians.

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

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.

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

Understanding is the basis of care. What you would take care of you must first understand, whether it be a petunia or a nation.

The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace... The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on take off.

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.

Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.

We are becoming who we will be-forever.

We're not here to prove we're right; we're here to help people.

My central claim is that we can become like Christ by doing one thing -- by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.

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

We are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God's great universe.

Bodily pleasure is not in itself a bad thing. But when it is exalted to a necessity and we become dependent upon it, then we are slaves of our body and its feelings. Only misery lies ahead.

Jesus is actually looking for people he can trust with his power.

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

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

We are invited to make a pilgrimage – into the heart and life of God.

Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ.