At last, quotes (a lot of quotes!!) from a book I finished a few months ago (it's been a while, so by way of a reminder: when I read books that I know God is using to shape the core of who I am, I like to compile all of the parts that I underlined while I was reading. It's nice to have an archive of the words and lines and quotes and phrases that impacted me most.)
If something doesn't make sense I very well could have typed it wrong...or it may be better understood if read in its full context...I would highly recommend that you read the whole book if you're interested.
All quotes, unless otherwise stated, are from Dallas Willard.
Introduction
I'm glad you're reading this book. Read it as if we are having a personal conversation - just you and me talking together, with the Lord between us.
memorization enables us to keep God and His truth constantly before our minds, allowing His Word and wisdom to help us.
unlimited in resources, just as He is unlimited in love, He is the Good Shepherd who generously provides for our every need.
Our confidence in God soars far above wants and fears.
you can live without fear even in the midst of a world dominated by fear.
the complete sufficiency of the life without lack is based upon the presence of God.
I would not feast upon a delicious meal in their ("my enemies") presence and let them stand there hungry. The abundance of God's provision and safety in my life is so great, I would invite them to enjoy what God has prepared for me.
I can be as generous as my Shepherd without fear of ever running out.
A life without lack is a life in which one is completely satisfied and sustained, no matter what happens.
Chapter 1
the most important thing about your mind is what it is fixed upon.
The ultimate freedom we have as individuals is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon and think about.
Yet there is every reason to hope if they would just stop looking at themselves and look at God instead.
The preaching of the Gospel will bring the mind to dwell intelligently upon God as He is presented in His Word, which will have the effect of causing us to love God passionately - in a way that brings us to think of God steadily. Thus He will always be before our minds.
fasting is feasting upon God.
Once you begin to have an impression of who God truly is, everything else fades into insignificance.
God is not stingy. He dwells in magnificent abundance, and lovingly provides for our needs out of that abundance.
God loves to gush forth with His goodness.
Chapter 2
your primary contact with God is through your mind, and what you do with your mind is the most important choice you have.
if we place our minds on God, the reality of God comes into our lives.
God is a being who is perfectly glorious and perfectly safe.
Even when you give God your highest praise, he will always be deserving of more.
we, too, require a long, steady education in this direction....increasingly come to know and trust God as He truly is.
fear and worry are worthless.
fix your mind upon God and ask him to fill your mind with himself.
even severe fears can be faced when we are confident in the strength and generosity of God - and in the fact that his kingdom isn't shaken, and he is not undone by these things.
let the worst happen! let the worst happen and God and I will go on together in the abundance of his being.
...have the magnificence and grandeur and glorious reality of God's being brought to our attention.
Chapter 3
it is hard for people to believe they are spirit-infused beings with such power, privilege and responsibility.
people are valuable even if they're doing nothing; we do not have to earn our value.
the obviously well kept secret of the "ordinary" is that it is make to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows.
the highest potential of God's love and power is available to us in the trivial things of everyday life.
work to produce more of the good he has put in this world.
work is the expending of energy to produce good in various forms and ways.
the real challenge to every person's faith is that we do everything to the glory of God, even in the smallest actions of our days.
He's more interested in the person you are becoming than in your work, or your ministry, or your job. the surest way to realize the full potential of your God-designed self is to live in eternity while you are in time, conscious of the loving gaze of your all-sufficient Shepherd, in who care nothing of the good you do is lost. submission is setting aside our own ideas as supreme and our own will as ultimate, freeing us from the burden of having our own way and of being all-wise in our own eyes.
people exist to love as Jesus loved.
Chapter 4
...the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8)
his (the enemy) intent is to thwart God's purposes by manipulating the minds of human beings.
when we seek to understand and destroy evil in the world, we must realize that we are dealing with something far beyond our natural capabilities, and we need to address evil with that realization.
satan uses not only our desires to deceive us but also our fears.
the only thing that can keep us straight is being full of God and full of His word.
this world is a perfectly good and safe place for anyone to be, no matter the circumstances, if they have placed their lives in the hands of Jesus and his Father. In such a world we never have to do what we know to be wrong, and we never need be afraid.
a society can lose the truth it once possessed simply by no longer desiring truth above reputation, pleasure and power
when looking good takes precedence over knowing the good, satan wins the battle...
when our minds are on God, and our thoughts are formed by our knowledge of God, such sufficiency will flow to us.
...think about God as Jesus thought about him, and to trust God as Jesus trusted Him - moving from having faith in Jesus to having the faith of Jesus.
Chapter 5
only faith would lead you to seek God with all your heart
if you have enough faith to speak it, then you may have enough faith to do it.
God is more concerned with who you are becoming than in what you can accomplish with your faith. he desires that you become the kind of person who can joyfully and easily receive an abundance of faith and power - the gift of great faith from God, who knows when, what kind, and how much to give us.
...they went through a painful process and came to understand how the blessing of God goes well beyond failure, disappointment and tragedy.
I don't care what's going to happen, I am holding on to God!
the life without lack is known by those who have learned how to trust God in the moment of their need....it is in that moment, when everything else is gone, that you know the reality of God.
in trusting you will know God.
He stopped trying to get God to make everything right.
Seek the Lord. Ask him to reveal himself to you and give you the faith of sufficiency that knowns no bounds.
the truth of God's grace is that we never merit the good that is done to us. Grace is opposed to earning, but it is not opposed to effort, because effort is action and earning is attitude.
we are not trying to impress anyone, most of all not ourselves.
Chapter 6
you were not put here on earth to get rid of yourself. you were put here to be a self, and to live fully as a self.
...to live with uncrucified affections and desires, is simply a matter of putting them in the ultimate position in our lives. whatever we want becomes the most important thing.
God prompts us to have an interest in what is better and best.
as long as people are hung up on honor from other people - reputation, appearing well - they cannot truly believe and trust God.
these beautiful qualities (from James 3:17-18) are marks of persons who have learned in their heart of hearts the great freedom of death to self, and out of their peaceful lives comes everything that is right and good.
Purity shocks people
God can make the condition of our own hearts known to us and he can give us new hearts marked by the wisdom from above. The requirement on our part is to die to self
the right thing would be simply releasing it all and saying “all right. God knows. I’m living in his world. He can give me what he wants. I will not put these things in the place of God.
The crucifixion of the self is a cooperative affair between us and the Lord. We cannot die to self without the help of God‘s grace.
We can receive the things we do not want – or give up the things we do want – if we have decided, by the grace of God, that we can trust God to take care of us.
Engage an honest and thoughtful prayer, letting God know what we are going through, listening for his calming assurance that all will be well, then acting interest against the lack or threat while praising God as we move forward with our lives.
If we get ourselves out of the way, and focus our attention upon the God of our sufficiency, then we, too, can be singing songs of victory.
Disengaging from the expectations of others.
Set aside days to spend alone with God to seek his face and to imagine that they shining with joy as it looks at you.
It is the experience of having God look you right in the eye and saying “I love you! I approve of you!” that is the unshakable ground of our self-worth. Our ultimate approval is from God, Not from other human beings.
Chapter 7
The faith God wants to give us is not for that thing, but for trusting him
Death to self is submitting all your desires to God… In God’s hands, we are content for him to take charge of outcomes.
Lord, you are quite sufficient for me. If you want to take it away forever, that would be fine.
God is love – and that is not an explanation of who God is; that’s an explanation of what love is.
Be a person possessed by love as an overall character of life
… Poised to promote the well-being of others…
We are called and enable to love as God loves becoming like God as loving persons
The goal is not to be people who do loving things but become the kind of people who naturally, joyfully, and easily love.
Having been served, he is free to serve.
Only Jesus enables his followers to live a life of selfless, joyful, anxiety free, loving service on behalf of others
He is the spirit of love who desires to reside within us and empower us to love as he loves
If we do not choose to become as loving as Jesus, we will never know a life without lack. For such a life is realized through love filling our lives. Faith is only completed in love, because our faith is in a God of love – no other.
God desires to heal our souls, and then we are better able to love the people he brings into our lives.
Let the Lord show you a good thing about them, and then love them by being thankful for them
In all this we must be careful not to get our egos involved
We begin by asking God to help us delight in them, focus on what is good for them, and celebrate what is valuable within them.
Seek to see them, to relate to them, to be with them as it is appropriate and good. Set your mind to be with them, and pay attention to them. Do what is good for them. Look into their eyes, and talk to them and listen to them; serve them, help them, give to them. Enjoy them. Praise God for them
You will never understand the heart of God unless you see that Mercy should govern all our relationships to one another.
Forgiveness can come long before the healing is complete.
your life is so full of good that you are prepared to take the absence of something from your life as sufficient proof that you do not need it
The ultimate freedom that comes to the one whose life is characterized by faith, death to self, and love is the assurance that you have everything you need in God.
Chapter 8
What is our part in dwelling with the Lord and living our days in such a way that goodness and mercy follow us in our week?
Our challenge is to stay with him in the increasing belief that God truly desires to be with us
The freedom from the frantic desire to have is grounded in God‘s promise to never leave us. Whatever we have or do not have makes no difference because we are with the one who will provide everything we need, and this allows us to be content.
If we are with him, everything is taken care of.
Our ordinary lives, our day-to-day at home at work at play maybe even at church lives will be extra ordinary.
The level of your desire for Jesus to be with you has no bearing on how much he loves you.
It is good that you are alive: your life is good, it is good that you are who you are, and it is good that you do the work you do.
Joy is a pervasive sense of well-being that claims your entire body and soul, both the physical and non-physical side of the human self
Being with Jesus will bring a new quality to your awareness of yourself and others; you’ll begin to see people with new eyes, with new appreciation and love
Yoked to Jesus, allow him to carry most of the load as you go about your day in his uplifting presence.
We are called to make intentional decisions and taking steps that will move us into a place of greater interaction with God.
Spiritual practices such as Sabbath, rest, solitude, and silence are essentially casting all your cares upon him. When you’ve done this enough to convince yourself that the world will be able to function without you, you will find true rest
Be with me, Lord, I have joy, I have joy.
Ask in particular for the faith, death to self, and love that make the shepherds efficiency your own… To be with him is to become like him.
Transform your normal activities into opportunities for communion with the Lord
Imagine what it would be like if you met with Jesus seven times throughout the day, and seven days throughout the week; he would likely grew quite a custom to his company. And his sufficiency!
Emergencies are opportunities to bring God into the realities of your life.
Everything that comes in to your day – every person, every activity, and even (or especially!) every interruption – is an opportunity for you and Jesus to bless
Train yourself to use each change of person or event to remind you to pray into bliss
It is essential that you are well grounded in the grace drenched message of God‘s acceptance of us. There is no room for – because there’s no possibility of – self righteousness here. God in love accepts us as we are, because he cannot accept us the way we aren’t. The only way you and I can come to God is, as the old hymn puts it, “just as I am.“ There is great freedom in this – the freedom to become God’s vision of you
When I enter into God, all life has a meaning. Without asking, I know; my desires are even now fulfilled…
May you know increasingly, by joyful experience, life abundant in rest, provision, and blessing – a life without lack.
From the Closing Prayer
Let your spirit move in our minds and hearts so we believe evermore fully that because you are are all sufficient shepherd, we shall never want.
it only took me about a year and a half to get through this book (and about 3+ months to get the quotes into a blog post!)...now I'm moving on to Willard's "The Divine Conspiracy"...be on the lookout for quotes from it in 2024. :) (and feel free to join me in reading it if you'd like!)
