Desiring God's Will Quotes

“Kingdom of Self The Kingdom of God • Ruled by self-interest • Ruled by love • Grasping • Releasing • Achievement • Gift • Effort • Consent • Independence • Interdependence • Holding • Releasing • Willful • Willing • Clenched fists and closed heart • Open hands and heart • Hard and brittle • Soft and malleable • Determination • Transformation”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“The act of willing surrender is a choice of openness, a choice of abandonment of self-determination, a choice of cooperation with God.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“Listen to the invitation of Jesus to join him in the reign of love that is life in the kingdom of God.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“Thomas Merton puts it this way: “Life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.”2”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“Spiritual disciplines should always be means to spiritual ends, never ends in themselves. They are places of meeting God that do not have value in and of themselves. To treat them as if they did is to develop a spirituality that is external, self-energized and legalistic. Genuine Christian spirituality places the priority on inner transformation, not outward routines.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“The life Jesus came to bring is a life that does not depend on willpower. It flows out of the Spirit of God, energizing and transforming our spirit. It's a life based on transfusion- God's Spirit transfusing my spirit, God's deepest desires, longings and dreams becoming mine. This is the way and the only way to the freedom and fulfillment of preferring God's will to mine.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“God does not want obedience as the fruit of our willful determination. God wants surrender as the choice of the heart. For what we long for in our heart we will pursue with the totality of our being not simply with the resolve of our will.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God

“Guilt is not enough to motivate surrender.”
― David G. Benner, Desiring God's Will: Aligning Our Hearts with the Heart of God