The Best Dallas Willard quotes

The kingdom of God is the true ecology of the human soul. — Dallas Willard

I do emphasize that we cannot just get out of the Bible a definition of the soul. — Dallas Willard

We see that the soul is the deepest and the most vital part of the person as a whole. It is often treated as the person, and we actually do this when we talk about ‘saving our soul. — Dallas Willard

The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. — Dallas Willard

The spirit is the part that is supposed to consciously direct everything in the person, including the soul. — Dallas Willard

It’s important to distinguish the soul from the spirit, or will, because the will or the heart or the spirit is the executive center of the self. — Dallas Willard

I would say the soul would be more than the engine. The soul would be like the computer system that coordinates everything, from the smog device to the fuel injection system to the brakes. — Dallas Willard

Now, of course, you have guidance devices and all sorts of things. The soul would be more like the way this is all hooked together, a system of coordination. — Dallas Willard

Keep eternity before the children. — Dallas Willard

Grace is not just about forgiveness but about life. — Dallas Willard

The true saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff. — Dallas Willard

The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace… The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on take off. — Dallas Willard

And grace is not opposed to effort; it is opposed to earning. — Dallas Willard

A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying ‘Why? — Dallas Willard

Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action. Grace, you know, does not just have to do with forgiveness of sins alone. — Dallas Willard

The command is ‘Do no work.’ Just make space. Attend to what is around you. Learn that you don’t have to DO to BE. accept the grace of doing nothing. Stay with it until you stop jerking and squirming. — Dallas Willard

Spiritual transformation into Christ–likeness in not going to happen unless we act… What transforms us is the will to obey Jesus Christ. — Dallas Willard

The Spiritual disciplines are wisdom and not righteousness. — Dallas Willard

Everyone gets a spiritual formation. It’s like education. Everyone gets an education; it’s just a matter of which one you get. — Dallas Willard

We are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. — Dallas Willard

You really can’t justify anything else but giving your whole attention to spiritual formation in Christ. — Dallas Willard

Spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit–driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself. — Dallas Willard

Spiritual formation in Christ moves us toward a total interchange of our ideas and images for his. — Dallas Willard

If you have a group of people come together around a vision for real discipleship, people who are committed to grow, committed to change, committed to learn, then a spiritual assessment tool can work. — Dallas Willard

Spirituality’ wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God. — Dallas Willard

Other kingdoms are still present on earth along with the kingdom of the heavens. That is the human condition. — Dallas Willard

Jesus is the human face on the kingdom of God. He makes it concretely accessible. — Dallas Willard

The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon. — Dallas Willard

God’s aim in human history is the creation of an inclusive community of loving persons, with himself included as its primary sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. — Dallas Willard

We don’t believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true. — Dallas Willard

I believe that every human being is sufficiently depraved that when we get to heaven, no one will be able to say, I merited this. — Dallas Willard

You can live opposite of what you profess, but you cannot live opposite of what you believe. — Dallas Willard

Knowing the ‘right answers’ does not mean we believe them. To believe them means to act as though they’re true. — Dallas Willard

We have churches full of people who profess all kinds of stuff that they don’t believe. They think that by professing it they’re doing something good. Really, they’re just deluding themselves. — Dallas Willard

Human beings are at their core defined by what they worship rather than primarily by what they think, know, or believe. That is bound up with the central Augustinian claim that we are what we love. — Dallas Willard

Legalists and theological experts with ‘lips close to God and hearts far away from him’ (Isa. 29:13). The world hardly needs more of these. — Dallas Willard

The aim of spiritual formation is not behavior modification but the transformation of all those aspects of you and me where behavior comes from…Circumcision of the heart. — Dallas Willard

The transformation of the social world is at its heart the transformation of personal relations. That’s the key to transforming society in the larger arena. — Dallas Willard

Actions are not impostions on who we are, but are expressions of who we are. They come out of our heart and the inner realities it supervises and interacts with — Dallas Willard

We renovate the heart by, of course, changing it, but we can’t do that, really, without changing the other essential parts of the human personality. — Dallas Willard

The different parts of the automobile like the ignition switch, the various buttons, the steering wheel–the interfaces between the driver and the machine–is our spirit or heart. — Dallas Willard