Quotes from Dallas Willard

And when people sense that something is coming around the logical corner that they will not to be so, they often just refuse to carefully follow the argument. It's as common as sin, and a large part of it too.

We cannot say too often that in the Sermon on the Mount we are not looking at laws, but at a life: a life in which the genuine laws of God eventually become naturally fulfilled.

Genuine transformation of the whole person into the goodness and power seen in Jesus and his "Abba" Father—the only transformation adequate to the human self—remains the necessary goal of human life. But it lies beyond the reach of programs of inner transformation that draw merely on the human spirit—even when the human spirit is itself treated as ultimately divine.

Specifically, in our attempts to understand how God speaks to us and guides us we must, above all, hold on to the fact that learning how to hear God is to be sought only as a part of a certain kind of life, a life of loving fellowship with the King and his other subjects within the kingdom of the heavens.

Sin always splits the self to some degree, yes. You know that you have harmed yourself and others, but you probably are not going to come to terms with that because you're carrying on a charade of righteousness, even if you don't believe it. So confession is very deep in the process of discovering the soul.

Whatever our position in life, if our lives and works are to be of the kingdom of God, we must not have human approval as a primary or even major aim. We must lovingly allow people to think whatever they will. We may, if it seems right, occasionally try to help them understand us and appreciate what we are doing. That could be an act of love. But in any case we can only serve them by serving the Lord only.

There is a widespread notion that just passing through death transforms human character. Discipleship is not needed. Just believe enough to "make it." But I have never been able to find any basis in scriptural tradition or psychological reality to think this might be so. What if death only forever fixes us as the kind of person we are at death? What would one do in heaven with a debauched character or a hate-filled heart?

Christ was not crucified so that we wouldn't have to be. He was crucified so we could be crucified with him.

"Incarnation" does not concern just the events of his conception and birth. It was the taking on of "flesh" in all its human meaning. He could live in your circumstances now. He could be you and still live in the kingdom of God. You can be his apprentice no matter who and where you are. It is as his personal friends, living interactively with him, that we know the truth and have the freedom—the power over evil—that comes with such knowledge.

Our destiny is to join a tremendously creative team effort, under unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and enjoyment.

In relation to spiritual disciplines, the most helpful distinction is the difference between trying to do something and training to do something.

Love means will-to-good, willing the benefit of what or who is loved. We may say we love chocolate cake, but we don't. Rather, we want to eat it. That is desire, not love. In our culture we have a great problem distinguishing between love and desire, but it is essential that we do so.