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Dallas Willard Quotes

Philosopher

Dallas Willard was an American philosopher known for his contributions to practical theology and moral philosophy. His works explored faith, moral life, and spiritual practice, having a profound impact on contemporary Christian philosophy.

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Famous Dallas Willard Quotes

“Does the Gospel I preach and teach have a natural tendency to cause people who hear it to become full-time students of Jesus? Would those who believe it become his apprentices as a natural 'next step'? What can we reasonably expect would result from people actually believing the substance of my message?”

People Believe Doe Next Jesus Causes Natural Results Steps Teach Students Messages Tendencies Substance Next Steps Apprentice

Author:Dallas Willard

“Knowing the 'right answers' does not mean we believe them. To believe them means to act as though they're true.”

Believe Mean Doe Answers Knowing Right Answers

Author:Dallas Willard

“So when Jesus directs us to pray, “Thy kingdom come,” he does not mean we should pray for it to come into existence. Rather, we pray for it to take over at all points in the personal, social, and political order where it is now excluded: “On earth as it is in heaven.” With this prayer we are invoking it, as in faith we are acting it, into the real world of our daily existence”

World Should Mean Doe Real Earth Political Order Jesus Heaven Social Prayer Acting Existence Praying Kingdoms Real World Excluded Kingdom Come

Author:Dallas Willard

“God inducts us into the eternal kind of life that flows through himself. He does this first by bringing that life to bear upon our needs, and then by diffusing it throughout our deeds - deeds done with expectation that he and his Father will act with and in our actions.”

Needs Firsts Kind Doe Done Action Father Bears Eternal Expectations Flow Deeds Our Actions Deeds Done

Book:The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

Source: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

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

Should Mean Doe Jesus Existence Praying Kingdoms Kingdom Come

Book:The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

Source: The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God

“As Augustine say clearly, God being God offends human pride. If God is running the universe and has first claim on our lives, guess who isn't running the universe and does not get to have things as they please.”

Ifs Firsts Humans Doe Running Universe Our Lives Pride Please Claims Augustine

Author:Dallas Willard

“What we can accomplish as good as it may be does not compare to what God can accomplish”

May Doe Accomplish Compare

Author:Dallas Willard

“Does Christ commend the famous 'apathy' of the Stoic or the Buddhist elimination of desire? Far from it. The issue is not just feeling or desire, but right feeling or desire, or being controlled by feeling or desire.”

Doe Feelings Desire Christ Issues Buddhist Controlled Apathy Elimination Stoic

Author:Dallas Willard

“One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God.”

Doe Heaven Effort Missing Hair Constant

Author:Dallas Willard

“What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that? I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say 'he can't save them.' I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved.”

“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

“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

“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

“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

“If our gospel does not free the individual up for a unique life of spiritual adventure in living with God daily, we simply have not entered fully into the good news that Jesus brought.”

Ifs Doe Spiritual Jesus Individual Adventure News Unique Good News Unique Life

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

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

“God does not 'love' us without liking us.”

Doe Fondness

Author:Dallas Willard

“Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. First, what is our plan for making disciples? And second, does our plan work?”

Needs Firsts Doe Two Able Church Answers Plans Disciple

Author:Dallas Willard

“Consumer Christianity is now normative. The consumer Christian is one who utilizes the grace of God for forgiveness and the services of the church for special occasions, but does not give his or her life and innermost thoughts, feelings, and intentions over to the kingdom of the heavens. Such Christians are not inwardly transformed and not committed to it.”

Giving Doe Feelings Christian Heaven Church Christianity Grace Special Intention Committed Kingdoms Occasions Consumers Transformed Grace Of God Special Occasion

Author:Dallas Willard