428 Quotes by Dallas Willard

Grace is not opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning.

When Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence.

We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.

When we receive God’s gift of life by relying on Christ, we find that God comes to act with us as we rely on him in our actions.

This impotence of “systems” is a main reason why Jesus did not send his students out to start governments or even churches as we know them today, which always strongly convey some elements of a human system. They were, instead, to establish beachheads of his person, word, and power in the midst of a failing and futile humanity.

Living in the kingdom of God is a matter of living with God’s action in our lives.

Spiritual formation cannot, in the nature of the case, be a ‘private’ thing, because it is a matter of whole-life transformation. You need to seek out others in your community who are pursuing the renovation of the heart.

The command is “Do no work.” Just make space. Attend to what is around you. Learn that you don’t have to DO to BE. accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming.

Blessed are the spiritual zeros – the spiritually bankrupt, deprived and deficient, the spiritual beggars, those without a wisp of ‘religion’ – when the kingdom of the heavens comes upon them.