Quotes from Dallas Willard

God wants us to participate in the governance of his kingdom.

Robbed of its reference to a transcendent spiritual being or substance that nonetheless personally engages with humanity while holding them responsible to its specific directives on how to live, this "love" ("God") has no recourse but to become whatever the current ideology says it is. Currently that means not treating people as different, while liberating them and enabling them to do what they want.

Dying to self does not exclude having a proper sense of self-worth, including the need to feel recognized and valued. Recognition from others is a good and proper thing. But it must not be what controls our lives. It must not become the goal of our existence. If we find that our need for recognition is consuming our thoughts and determining our behavior, then we need to move to a higher source for our sense of our personal worth. That source is, of course, God's love for us.

The Bible is the unique written Word of God. It is inerrant in its original form and infallible in all of its forms for the purpose of guiding you into a life-saving relationship with God in His kingdom. The Bible contains a body of knowledge without which human beings cannot survive. It reliably fixes the boundaries of everything God will ever say to humankind.

Much, not all, of the anti-government sentiment in the United States today is thinly veiled hatred of law and exaltation of brutal self-will. Thus it easily slips over into "righteous wrongdoing.

Memorization is an essential element of a life without lack. It is a primary way we fill our minds with the Word of God and have our thoughts formed by God's thoughts.

The damage done to our practical faith in Christ and in his government-at-hand by confusing heaven with a place in distant or outer space, or even beyond space, is incalculable. Of course God is there too. But instead of heaven and God also being always present with us, as Jesus shows them to be, we invariably take them to be located far away and, most likely, at a much later time—not here and not now. And we should then be surprised to feel ourselves alone?

We settle back into de facto alienation of our religion from Jesus as a friend and teacher, and from our moment-to-moment existence as a holy calling or appointment with God. Some will substitute ritual behavior for divine vitality and personal integrity; others may be content with an isolated string of "experiences" rather than transformation of character.

Jesus and his words have never belonged to the categories of dogma or law, and to read them as if they did is simply to miss them.

If I'm a pastor, the trinitarian fellowship is my first team. My ultimate loyalty is to that fellowship. My primary identity is as a part of that fellowship. My understanding of how I am doing in life comes out of that trinitarian fellowship. No other team is allowed to determine my identity or evaluate my performance beyond that one.

The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians, and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.

This is certainly true for those in professional ministry. In humility, every Christian leader is subject to the people to whom he or she ministers. This is, after all, what ministry is, professional or not—being subject to the needs of other people. That involves listening to them, being attentive to them. But if we become dependent on their opinions, we have ruined any chance of truly helping them, because now our primary concern is to gain their approval.