Dallas Willard Quotes

“No matter how lost a person is, they still draw on their body. So the body would be more like the motor.”

Persons Stills Matter Body Would Be Lost Draws Motor

“Suppose we have a motor and our transmission doesn't work or our clutch or whatever. Then our body, our motor, just takes us down the road. Or our brakes don't work! We must have a coordination system.”

Body Motor Down The Road Transmission Clutch Brake Coordination

Author:Dallas Willard

“The different parts of the automobile like the ignition switch, the various buttons, the steering wheel - the interfaces between the driver and the machine - is our spirit or heart.”

Heart Different Spirit Machines Various Wheels Drivers Buttons Automobile Interfaces Steering

Author:Dallas Willard

“The relation of redemption and sanctification would be the ongoing relationship between the driver and God who is directing her. Now, if God isn't directing him, he may go wild and do all sorts of things criminal and crazy.”

Ifs May Would Be Crazy Relation Criminals Redemption Drivers Ongoing Sanctification

Author:Dallas Willard

“Think of the soul as the computer system that runs the whole thing. And then the spirit is the executive center. It's the faculty of choice. And then you want that faculty governed by the truth of God and the Spirit of God.”

Thinking Want Soul Whole Running Spirit Choices Computer Executives Faculty Spirit Of God Truth Of God Computer Systems

Author:Dallas Willard

“The Great Commission is still the mission statement of the Church.”

Stills Church Missions Statements Great Commission Mission Statement

Author:Dallas Willard

“It's just stunning to watch churches struggle to get mission statements when there it is, the Great Commission, and they should simply do what it says.”

Should Church Watches Struggle Missions Statements Stunning Great Commission Mission Statement

Author:Dallas Willard

“Make disciples. Surround them in the reality of the Trinity in a fellowship of disciples. Teach them to do everything Jesus says.”

Reality Jesus Teach Surround Disciple Fellowship Trinity

Author:Dallas Willard

“I was in a fascinating meeting where one man had been in China recently. A Chinese professor has found evidence that Christians reached Western China before 90 AD. Before 90 AD! The idea isn't all that astonishing when we think about it. That's what the disciples thought they were supposed to do! And, I'm sure, the disciples just said, "That's it. Let's go!" And they all wound up dead. But everyone else did too!”

Thinking Men Said Ideas Christian Found Evidence Meetings Western China Wounds Chinese Fascinating One Man Professors Ads Disciple Astonishing

Author:Dallas Willard

“When we are formed inwardly, outer issues do become much more manageable.”

Issues Manageable

Author:Dallas Willard

“Our relations with others are not external. They enter into our very identity. And that's why people struggle with them so.”

People Struggle Identity Relation

Author:Dallas Willard

“Relations between parents and children and siblings and mates. This is not external. We can't separate them.”

Children Parent Relation Mates Sibling Children And Parents

Author:Dallas Willard

“That's the secret of Jesus. You watch Jesus and you see he never did "withdraw" and then "attack." All of the time people wanted him to do it and in many ways, but he would not. Then to the body of believers he said, "This will show everyone that you are my disciples, if you love one another," but he had already said, "Love one another as I have loved you." So that's the model.”

People Ifs Way Said Shows Body Wanted Jesus Secret Watches Models Believer Disciple Love One Another

Author:Dallas Willard

“The transformation of the social world is at its heart the transformation of personal relations. That's the key to transforming society in the larger arena.”

World Heart Social Keys Relation Transformation Arena Transforming Transforming Society

Author:Dallas Willard

“There is no cure for the social battles that we fight in our culture - and there's so much grief around race, gender, and so forth - until you eliminate "withdrawal" and "attack" and replace them with "acceptance" and "help." Once you do that and not just talk about it, these other issues will fall into place quickly. They will not fall into place at all unless it is done this way.”

Way Done Helping Fall Culture Fighting Social Grief Race Issues Acceptance Battle Gender Cures Withdrawal Fall Into Place

Author:Dallas Willard

“We cannot handle injustice by finding more ways to impose what is in fact "right" on people. It has to come from the inside. And that's where the church should be working.”

People Way Should Facts Church Findings Injustice Handle

Author:Dallas Willard

“That's the illusion - the idea that you can be all right on the inside and not act it out - and it has affected us in many ways. That's a part of the idea that professing is enough.”

Way Ideas Enough Illusion Affected

Author:Dallas Willard

“We have churches full of people who profess all kinds of stuff that they don't believe. They think that by professing it they're doing something good. Really, they're just deluding themselves.”

People Thinking Believe Kind Stuff Church Don't Believe All Kinds

Author:Dallas Willard

“In the area of social righteousness we cannot be right on the inside and not do it. We cannot! Of course we have people who pretend that they can, but it simply isn't true.”

People Courses Social Areas Righteousness

Author:Dallas Willard

“If we are right on the inside, we will address these issues straight-forwardly and take a stand on them, and, if necessary, die for them. We will be that committed.”

Ifs Dies Issues Committed Addresses

Author:Dallas Willard

“When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.”

Kind Philosophy Home School Left Stuff Sound Crazy Modern Subjects High School Workers Library Bags Graduates Plato Migrants Graduating High School

Author:Dallas Willard

“We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can almost be as stupid as a cabbage as long as you doubt.”

Believe Persons Long Ideas Culture Doubt Century Stupid Smarter Skeptical Believe You Can Cabbage

Author:Dallas Willard

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone.”

Knows Doe Action Sin Effort Attitude Grace Earning Forgiveness Of Sins

Author:Dallas Willard

“What a child does when not told what to do is the final indicator of what and who that child is.”

Children Doe Finals Indicators

Book:Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

Source: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

“Kingdom praying and its efficacy is entirely a matter of the innermost heart's being totally open and honest before God. It is a matter of what we are saying with our whole being, moving with resolute intent and clarity of mind into the flow of God's action.”

Mind Heart Matter Whole Action Moving Honest Praying Flow Kingdoms Clarity Efficacy Resolute Clarity Of Mind

Author:Dallas Willard

“What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. That is what it means to fly upside down.”

Mean Stupid Profound Boring Upside Down

Author:Dallas Willard

“Suppose our failures occur, not in spite of what we are doing, but precisely because of it.”

Spite

Author:Dallas Willard

“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 their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.”

“A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying “Why?”

Heart Children Situation Grace Painful Helpless Grace Of God Painful Situations

Book:Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ

Source: Renovation of the Heart: Putting On the Character of Christ

“The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”

Source: The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship

“Actions are not impostions on who we are, but are expressions of who we are. They come out of our heart and the inner realities it supervises and interacts with”

Heart Reality Action Expression Who We Are

Author:Dallas Willard

“Happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in being stirred up. This instinct conflicts with the drive to diversion, and we develop the confused idea that leads people to aim at rest through excitement.”

People Ideas Reality Conflict Aim Instinct Excitement Confused Diversion

Author:Dallas Willard

“There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas This is never more true than with our ideas about God.”

Ideas Facts Mercy Avoiding Hearing God

Author:Dallas Willard

“In many cases, our need to wonder about or be told what God wants in a certain situation is nothing short of a clear indication of how little we are engaged in His work.”

Want Needs Littles Certain Situation Wonder Cases Clear Gods Will Engaged Indication

Author:Dallas Willard

“Sometimes we get caught up in trying to glorify God by praising what He can do and we lose sight of the practical point of what He actually does do.”

Trying Doe Sometimes Can Do Loses Sight Praise Caught Practicals Caught Up Glorify

Book:Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional

Source: Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional

“Great faith, like great strength in general, is revealed by the ease of its workings. Most of what we think we see as the struggle OF faith is really the struggle to act as IF we had faith when in fact we do not.”

Ifs Thinking Facts Struggle Ease Great Faith

Book:Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

Source: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

“Individually the disciple and friend of Jesus who has learned to work shoulder to shoulder with his or her Lord stands in this world as a point of contact between heaven and earth, a kind of Jacob’s ladder by which the angels of God may ascend from and descend into human life. Thus the disciple stands as an envoy or a receiver by which the kingdom of God is conveyed into every quarter of human affairs.”

World Humans Kind May Earth Jesus Heaven Lord This World Angel Affair Shoulders Kingdoms Contact Human Life Quarters Disciple Ladders Kingdom Of God Heaven And Earth Jacob Receiver

Author:Dallas Willard

“Our failure to hear His voice when we want to is due to the fact that we do not in general want to hear it, that we want it only when we think we need it.”

Thinking Want Needs Facts Voice Dues Voice Of God Hearing God

Author:Dallas Willard

“Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs.”

People God Morning Food Hungry Arise Eggs Toasts

Book:Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional

Source: Hearing God Through the Year: A 365-Day Devotional

“We must understand that God does not "love" us without liking us - through gritted teeth - as "Christian" love is sometimes thought to do. Rather, out of the eternal freshness of his perpetually self-renewed being, the heavenly Father cherishes the earth and each human being upon it. The fondness, the endearment, the unstintingly affectionate regard of God toward all his creatures is the natural outflow of what he is to the core - which we vainly try to capture with our tired but indispensable old word "love".”

“Jesus, Willard says, “does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.”

Doe Said Jesus Natural Expression Who We Are

Author:Dallas Willard

“I'm practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.”

Lasts Discipline Last Words

Author:Dallas Willard

“The idea that everything would happen exactly as it does regardless of whether we pray or not is a specter that haunts the minds of many who sincerely profess belief in God. It makes prayer psychologically impossible, replacing it with dead ritual at best.”

Mind Doe Ideas Happens Belief Prayer Impossible Praying Ritual Sincerely Belief In God

Author:Dallas Willard

“You can live opposite of what you profess, but you cannot live opposite of what you believe.”

Life Inspirational Believe Opposites

Author:Dallas Willard

“Spiritual people are not those who engage in certain spiritual practices; they are those who draw their life from a conversational relationship with God.”

People Spiritual Certain Religion Practice Draws Relationship With God Spiritual Practice

Book:Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

Source: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

“Grace is not opposed to effort; it's opposed to earning.”

Effort Grace Earning

Book:Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

Source: Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God

“The first act of love is always the giving of attention.”

Love Giving Firsts Love Is Attention Acts Of Love

Author:Dallas Willard

“The will is transformed by experience, not information.”

Information Coaching Transformed

Book:Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God

Source: Living in Christ's Presence: Final Words on Heaven and the Kingdom of God

“It's very difficult to be right about something without hurting someone with it.”

Religion Difficult Hurt Hurting Someone

Author:Dallas Willard

“The main thing God gets out of your life is not the achievements you accomplish. It's the person you become.”

Persons Life Is Achievement Accomplish

Author:Dallas Willard

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Famous Dallas Willard Quotes