Renewing the Christian Mind Quotes

“The idea that you can trust Christ and not intend to obey him is an illusion generated by the prevalence of an unbelieving “Christian culture.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Divine grace is God acting in our life to accomplish what we cannot do on our own. It informs our being and actions and makes them effective in the wisdom and power of God. Hence, grace is not opposed to effort (our actions) but to earning (our attitude).”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“We hear the cries from our strife-torn streets, “Give peace a chance!” and “Can’t we all just get along?” But you cannot give peace a chance if that is all you give a chance. You have to do the things that make peace possible and actual. When you listen to people talk about peace, you soon realize, in most cases, that they are unwilling to deal with the conditions of society and soul that make strife inevitable. They want to keep them and still have peace, but it is peace on their terms, which is impossible.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“An older Franciscan brother said to Brennan Manning on the day he joined the order, “Once you come to know the love of Jesus Christ, nothing else in the world will seem as beautiful or desirable.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“we see the reality of Jesus risen, his actual existence now as a person who is present among his people. We find him in his ecclesia, his sometimes motley but always glorious crew of called-out ones.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“our relationship with Jesus, which he argued ultimately allows us to establish a relationship with the kingdom of God. This relationship is one of discipleship in which we learn to live our lives as Jesus would through progressively embodying and manifesting a Christlike character, which is attained through establishing a discipling relationship to Jesus.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“we are in a time when thinking rightly is more important than ever. The prospering of God’s cause on earth depends upon his people thinking well.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Christ is the only one capable of communicating to and developing within the believer an accurate image and idea of God.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Satan’s efforts to defeat God’s purposes for humankind. This is the basic idea behind all temptation: God is presented as depriving us by his commands of what is good.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Jesus understood the great significance of images. He intentionally selected an image that would brilliantly convey himself and his message: the cross. The cross represents the lostness of man, as well as the sacrifice of God and the abandonment to God that brings redemption.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Christian spiritual formation is inescapably a matter of recognizing in ourselves the idea systems of evil that govern the present age and respective culture, as well as those that constitute life away from God.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“Dallas held that historic Christian knowledge represents the “knowledge of God” made available to us through tradition, scriptures, reason, and experience. As such, we must be willing to suffer the consequences of conserving the truth, speaking truth in love, and trusting God to care for us when the public tide turns away from what God has revealed as good and best.”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks

“In the spiritual life it is actually true that “where there is a will there is a way.” This is true because God is involved and makes his help available to those who seek it. On the other hand, where there is no will (firm intentions based on clear vision) there is no way. People who do not intend to be inwardly transformed, so that obedience to Christ “comes naturally,” will not be transformed. God will not pick us up and throw us into transformed kingdom living, into “holiness,” against our will. In”
― Dallas Willard, Renewing the Christian Mind: Essays, Interviews, and Talks