Quotes from Dallas Willard

There is a distinctive emphasis by Jesus on loving your neighbor, your "near dweller," not upon loving "humanity" or "everyone."19 What this means is that our duty and our virtue is to love those with whom we are in effectual contact—those we can really do something about.

Lord, when we are wrong, make us willing to change, and when we are right, make us easy to live with!

So God uses our self-knowledge or self-awareness, which is heightened and given a special quality by his presence and direction, to search us out and reveal to us the truth about ourselves and our world.

They bring the life of the kingdom to other people. They bring that life in themselves. That's what Jesus himself said, and that's what he did. When he came, he said, "Repent for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand." What was at hand? The kingdom that was in him. As people looked at him and listened to him, they realized that the kingdom of God was there and that it was available to them, and they became disciples of Jesus because of that.

So those who hear me and do what I say are like those intelligent people who build their homes on solid rock, where rain and floods and winds cannot shake them. MATT. 7:24—25 Train them to do everything I have told you. MATT. 28:20 The Course of Studies in the Master Class These words from Jesus show that it must be possible to hear and do what he said. It also must be possible to train his apprentices in such a way that they routinely do everything he said was best.

Can anyone now seriously believe that if people are only permitted or enabled to do what they want, they will then be happy or more disposed to do what is right?

What is the point of standing up for rights in a world where few stand up for their responsibilities? Your rights will do you little good unless others are responsible

The focus of spiritual formation is the formation of our spirit.

The lessons I taught you, the tradition I have passed on, all that you heard me say or saw me do, put into practice; and the God of peace will be with you (Phil. 4:9, NEB).

God is great enough that he can conduct his affairs in this way. His nature, identity, and overarching purposes are no doubt unchanging. But his intentions with regard to many particular matters that concern individual human beings are not. This does not diminish him. Far from it. He would be a lesser God if he could not change his intentions when he thinks it is appropriate. And if he chooses to deal with humanity in such a way that he will occasionally think it appropriate, that is just fine.

In our spiritual disintegration we may not be able to rule the earth, but we now have the power several times over to ruin it utterly.

Heroism, generally, is totally out of place in the spiritual life, until we grow to the point at which it would never be thought of as heroism anyway.