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

by Dallas Willard

This practice of memorizing the scriptures is more important than a daily quiet time, for as we fill our minds with these great passages and have them available for our meditation, quiet time takes over the entirety of our lives. “Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace—in peace because they trust in you” (Isaiah 26:3).

Meditation on Him and His Word must become an integral part of our lives too.

Nothing can inform, guide, and sustain pervasive and radiant goodness in a person other than the true vision of God and the worship that spontaneously arises from it. Then the power of the indwelling Christ flows from us to others.

In it we may even find another reminder of grace—that we are saved, justified by His redeeming power, not by our strivings and achievements.

“The greatest threat to devotion to Christ is service for Christ.”

The more I practice this discipline, the more I appreciate the strength of silence. The less I become skeptical and judgmental, the more I learn to accept the things I didn’t like about others, and the more I accept them as uniquely created in the image of God. The less I talk, the fuller are words spoken at an appropriate time. The more I value others, the more I serve them in small ways, and the more I enjoy and celebrate my life. The more I celebrate, the more I realize that God has been giving me wonderful things in my life, and the less I worry about my future. I will accept and enjoy what God is continuously giving to me. I think I am beginning to really enjoy God.4 Experiencing