Streams of Living Water Quotes

“True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it. — William Penn”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“If we are a people rich in social relationships, we are rich indeed. Whenever we develop significant friendships with those who are not like us culturally, we become broader, wiser persons.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“God, what is man’s best gift to mankind? To be beautiful of soul and then let people see into your soul.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The astonishing new reality in this mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignly God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“One caution: our souls will never grow in God if we read the Bible solely to get ammunition to defend ourselves or to defeat others. No. We read the Bible to be fed. We read it to be converted, to be strengthened, to be taught, to be rebuked, to be counseled, to be comforted. As we sit under the Bible for sustained periods, we will be formed by the experience.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return.—Thomas Kelly”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Remember, we are calling people not merely to accept a set of beliefs about Jesus that will somehow trip the divine lever and get them into heaven when they die. Oh, no! We are calling people to turn to Jesus as their life. We are inviting people to believe in Jesus by becoming his disciples, and as his disciples (or apprentices) to enroll in his school of living. Thus people become trained in the Way, increasingly taking into themselves Jesus’ hopes, dreams, longings, habits, and abilities. This is how they learn “to obey everything that I have commanded you.” There simply is no other way.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“We simply cannot consider the earth apart from Christ’s footsteps imprinted upon it.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Little children, love one another.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Once we define holiness solely by external matters, we are, of necessity, plunged into legalisms of one sort or another. Why? Because now we have hoops for people to jump through. We have a way to manage and control ourselves and others. (And usually we are the hardest on ourselves.)”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“We, you see, are terribly prone to settle for less than what God desires for us. We are glad enough for God to remove an irritating behavior from our personality (a sour disposition, for example), or a destructive addiction (like alcoholism), but it is a very different thing for him to begin restructuring our inner affections.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“First of all the Holiness Tradition constantly holds before us the ultimate goal of the Christian life: an ever deeper formation of the inner personality so as to reflect the glory and goodness of God; an ever more radiant conformity to the life and faith and desires and habits of Jesus; an utter transformation of our creatureliness into whole and perfect sons and daughters of God.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“The Holiness Tradition feeds us in many ways: focusing on personal transformation, emphasizing purity of heart, assuring progress in character formation, fostering growth in grace, and more.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Virtue is good habits we can rely upon to make our life work. Conversely, vice is bad habits we can rely upon to make our life not work, to make it dysfunctional, as we say. So a holy life simply is a life that works.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Holiness means the ability to do what needs to be done when it needs to be done.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Contrary to popular opinion, the Epistle of James is not a book about action. It is a book about the source of action, the heart of virtue. Even the most frequently quoted saying from the book — “Faith without works is dead” — is not about action.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“What could possibly have happened to change James the scoffer into James the believer and ultimately into “James the Just,” the leader of the Jerusalem church? I believe the answer is nothing less than Jesus’ personal appearance to his younger brother following his resurrection from the dead.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Phoebe anticipated numerous contemporary feminist concerns, addressing them without mincing words: “We believe that hundreds of conscientious, sensitive Christian women have actually suffered more under the slowly crucifying process to which they have been subjected by men who bear the Christian name than many a martyr has endured in passing through the flames.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Every one of us is called to be a contemplative — not in the sense of a particular vocation we call “the contemplative life,” but in the sense of a holy habit of contemplative love that leads us forth in partnership with God into creative and redeeming work.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“QUESTION: What is the Contemplative Tradition? ANSWER: A life of loving attention to God. QUESTION: Why should we explore it? ANSWER: Because through it we experience the divine rest that overcomes our alienation.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Stop praying for a day. Listen to the birds — not to get some “message” from them but to hear them. Sit in the silence, doing nothing, having nothing, needing nothing.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“The third peril in the Contemplative Tradition is the tendency to devalue intellectual efforts to articulate our faith. This can sometimes border on (or plunge headlong into) anti-intellectualism. We can see this in the various mysticisms that are divorced from solid theology. And even completely orthodox writers in this Tradition can sometimes inadvertently contribute to this problem in their zeal to stress heart-faith.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“more than other approaches to faith the Contemplative Stream emphasizes the solitariness of our life with God. In the language of the old folk spiritual, we must travel this “lonesome valley” alone. “No one else can walk it for me. I have to walk it by myself.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“The stress upon the centrality of prayer is a third contribution of the Contemplative Tradition. Contemplatives do not think of prayer as a good thing, or an important thing, but as the essential thing, the primary thing.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“The day had been rich but strenuous, so I climbed ‘Signal Hill’ back of my house talking and listening to God all the way up, all the way back, all the lovely half hour on the top. And God talked back! I let my tongue go loose and from it there flowed poetry far more beautiful than any I ever composed. It flowed without pausing and without ever a failing syllable for a half hour.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Humbled by the divine Presence, he nevertheless sought to understand why God would let him go through such terrible struggles: “Why didn’t you appear in the beginning, so that you could stop my distresses?” The response he heard spoke not only to his present situation but also to his future ministry. “And a voice came to him: ‘I was here, Antonius, but I waited to watch your struggle. And now, since you persevered and were not defeated, I will be your helper forever, and I will make you famous everywhere.’”3”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Where do you think he learned to live out the words, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Matt. 7:12)? Where did he learn all these things and so much more? I will tell you where. He learned them in his carpentry work and at home with his parents and his brothers and sisters. Jesus did not all of a sudden one day start spouting nice sayings about God. No, when he began his public ministry, he was speaking out of a life that had been tested and tried. He had proven the teachings to be true over and over again as he sawed wood and assembled chairs and built cabinets.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“Judas held back. He had charge of the money for the apostolic band, and that money had eaten a hole in his heart. In addition, he was a Zealot, and he had hoped to force Jesus’ hand to join the Zealot cause. If Jesus were to be confronted by violent force, surely he would respond with supernatural violent force, or so Judas thought. So he betrayed his Master.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ

“We see in him such deeply ingrained “holy habits” that he is always “response-able,” always able to respond appropriately. This is purity of heart. This is the virtuous life. To see the vision of the Holiness Tradition in all its robust dynamic, we need look no further.”
― Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christ