Spirituality Class -- Favorite Quotes

My “Ministry of Spirituality” class with Dallas Willard and Keith Matthews is now complete. Our family is now making plans for our East Coast trip.

A number of your reported that you enjoyed the favorite class quotes section. Here is a final section of favorite quotes from class or class readings:

Poverty and Wealth
* Beware of presenting God as stingy, shabby, mean or small; God is not poor.
* God would rather let you have money that let crooks have it; but be sure that money doesn’t make you crooked.
* One of the worst ways to help the poor is by being poor.
* The problem of wealth is not about possessions or their use but about the amount of trust we place in our possessions and wealth.



Desire
* Sin is a radical addiction to my self-sufficiency.
* The answer to lust is love, the treasuring of human beings.
* Temptation does not leap on you unawares; there is always a lead-up.
* You cannot deal with desire by trying to satisfy it; desire is not self-limiting.
* Human desire is not holy; just because you desire something does not mean that it’s right.



Anger
* Everything I can accomplish with anger I can do better without it; if you approach others with anger, you will get anger back.
* In the moment, all anger feels like righteous anger.
* Revolutions routinely fail because when people get caught up in anger, they often beget even more anger through violence or injustice.



Kingdom of God
* God doesn’t simply want us to not do wrong; God is interested in our involvement in his kingdom purposes.
* The divine conspiracy is God’s intent to overcome evil with good in history and to draw each of us out of our own little kingdoms into his great kingdom.

Scripture, Worship, Prayer
* We need to drink at the well of the greatness of God.
* The Bible provides the best information regarding the most important questions of life.
* Read the Bible with the assumption that you are already wrong about a lot of things.
* Our study should lead us to worship.
* How far from being lovers of God are those who rarely think of him.
* Worship is the single-most powerful force in the renovation of the soul.
* Prayer helps remove the habit of self-reliance.
* Facing the silence of God challenges us to love the giver and not merely the gifts.

Service, Confession, Submission
* Servanthood is not a leadership technique; it is leadership. It is not a path to greatness; it is greatness.
* Confession enables us to drop the burden of pretense.
* Submission frees us from the burden of having to have our own way. 


Use of Time
* If you have too much to do, who do you think gave you too much? OR If God kept your calendar, would he schedule every minute of the day?
* Hurry is a state of frantic effort one falls into in response to inadequacy, fear and guilt.
* Do not say, “I don’t have enough time;” say rather, “I have chosen to spend my time thusly.”
* True spirituality is honest about human limitations.
* It is more important to plans for your weeks, months and years than for your days. [Put in the big rocks first!]
* Work a modest day, then step back to rest. This will keep you close to God.
* What is your personal strategy for becoming Christlike over your lifetime?