Quotes from Dallas Willard

We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God's full world.

Indeed, by taking the title Son of man, he staked his claim to be all that the human being was originally supposed to be—and surely much more.

The miracle is not that God loves me; it would be a miracle if he didn't love me, because he is love. That is God's basic nature—a will to good.

Thus by proclaiming blessed those who in the human order are thought hopeless, and by pronouncing woes over those human beings regarded as well off, Jesus opens the kingdom of the heavens to everyone.

The Trinity is the model of life as it is intended to be in human existence, the basis for Christian community.

Let's remember that Jesus didn't leave Thomas to suffer without the blessing of faith and confidence; he gave him the evidence he required. That is typical of Jesus's approach to doubt; he responded to honest doubters in the way he knew best, the way that would help them to move from doubt to knowledge.

Bodily habits are the primary form in which human evil exists in practical life.

Serving really involves giving people what is good for them, not merely pursuing their approval and granting their desires.

It is reasonable to expect that leading a divine conspiracy will require journalists, writers, artists, and scholars to carefully, accurately, and courageously expose the follies of our social institutions in government, business, religion, art, economics, engineering, medicine, law, finance, security, and education. This is where our Christian universities play perhaps the central role, if administrating the common flourishing is to occur in any meaningful way.

Art is lost in pop "art" as sport is lost in professional "sport"—which is an oxymoron of the strongest kind. Absurdity reigns, and confusion makes it look good.

You need to imagine what your day would look like with Jesus at your side—as he will be.

The God-intended function of the will is to reach out to God in trust. By standing in the correct relation to God through our will we can receive grace that will properly reorder the soul along with the other five components of the self.