Quotes from Dallas Willard

That is not the way of God. It is asking, it is seeking, it is knocking.

And of course it is discipleship, real-life apprenticeship to Jesus, that is the passageway within The Kingdom Among Us from initial faith in Jesus to a life of fulfillment and routine obedience.

Satan uses not only our desires to deceive us but also our fears. Fear that we will not get what we desire can provide the motivation for actions that cause so many of our problems.

Religion as a historical human practice was therefore not of divine origin, and its developments and activities had to be of an entirely human origin.

We are meant to exercise our "rule" only in union with God, as he acts with us. He intended to be our constant companion or coworker in the creative enterprise of life on earth. That is what his love for us means in practical terms.

They do not know what they are doing and do not have the ability to distance themselves from it so they can see it for what it is. That is the power of "culture.

Life as usual must go. It will be replaced by something far better.

The heart is our point of contact with God's unlimited capacity to protect and provide, which flows to those who choose to keep their minds fixed on him.

Brother Lawrence, who was a kitchen worker and cook, remarks. Our sanctification does not depend upon changing our works, but in doing that for God's sake which we commonly do for our own…. It is a great delusion to think that the times of prayer ought to differ from other times. We are as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of action as by prayer in the season of prayer.

Deciding to fill our minds with God is how we keep our hearts. To listen to his Word and nourish our whole beings with it is not a nice thing we might do occasionally. Our very lives depend upon it.

But—for good reasons rooted deeply in the nature of the person and of personal relationships—his preferred way is to speak, to communicate: thus the absolute centrality of scripture to our discipleship. And this, among other things, is the reason why an extensive use of solitude and silence is so basic for growth of the human spirit, for they form an appropriate context for listening and speaking to God.

The eternal life of which Jesus speaks is not knowledge about God but an intimately interactive relationship with him.