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.
The “interior castle” of the human soul, as Teresa of Avila called it, has many rooms, and they are slowly occupied by God, allowing us time and room to grow.
May I just give you this word? Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.
But Jesus’ own gospel of the kingdom was not that the kingdom was about to come, or had recently come, into existence. If we attend to what he actually said, it becomes clear that his gospel concerned only the new accessibility of the kingdom to humanity through himself.
God’s presence is everywhere around us. God is able to penetrate intertwine himself within the fibers of the human self in such a way that those who are enveloped in His loving companionship will never be alone. page 59.
Union in action with the triune God is Christian spirituality. That is where the life is drawing its substance from God.
And if you are already flying upside down and don’t know it, your cleverness will do you little good.
One does not miss heaven by a hair, but by constant effort to avoid and escape God.
The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity.
The key, then, to loving God is to see Jesus, to hold him before the mind with as much fullness and clarity as possible. It is to adore him.
Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs.
We are becoming who we will be-forever.
The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer-the responses of our Father to our requests-our confidence in God’s power spills over into other areas of our life.
I’m practicing the discipline of not having to have the last word.
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.
Every church needs to be able to answer two questions. First, what is our plan for making disciples? And second, does our plan work?
As we mature in Christ, it is actually possible to outgrow fear.
We are built to live in the kingdom of God. It is our natural habitat.
We need to understand that Jesus is a thinker, that this is not a dirty word but an essential work, and that his other attributes do not preclude thought, but only ensure that he is certainly the greatest thinker of the human race: “the most intelligent person who ever lived on earth”
God’s address is at the end of your rope.