Dallas Willard wrote, “Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major ...

Dallas Willard wrote, “Spirituality wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God.” (Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988, 91.) http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=3369
 

"So life in the kingdom is not just a matter of not doing what is wrong. The apprentices of Jesus are primarily occupied with the positive good that can be done during their days "under the sun" and the positive strengths and virtues that they develop in themselves as they grow toward "the kingdom prepared for them from the foundations of the world" (Matt. 25:34). What they, and God, get out of their lifetime is chiefly the person they become. And that is why their real life is so important." -- "How To Be a Disciple" by Dallas Willard http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=336
 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/009/27.45.html
A Divine Conspirator
Dallas Willard is on a quiet quest to subvert nominal Christianity.
by Christine A. Scheller | posted 09/08/2006
Willard says the intersection between his philosophical and devotional work can be found in the simple question: Who are you going to become?
 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2005/003/2.20.html
The Apprentices
What is spiritual formation? And how does a church do it? A professor and pastor discuss the new language of making disciples.
The problem, Willard says, is that we do not practice spiritual formation. Churches have not designed their ministries to help people believe and behave differently, because many church leaders have simply gotten the message of Jesus wrong.


Living A Transformed Life Adequate To Our Calling
Previously unpublished. Prepared for The Augustine Group, 2005.
http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=119
To fulfill the high calling which God has placed upon us in creating us and redeeming us, we must have the right inner substance or character. We must come to grips with who we really are, inside and out. For we will do what we are. So we will need to become the kind of people who routinely and easily walk in the goodness and power of Jesus our Master. For this, a process of "spiritual formation"—really, transformation—is required.

Kingdom Living
http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=92

AP Your teaching on the kingdom highlights some of the differences between the charismatic and evangelicals. Charismatics emphasise manifestation, evangelicals Bible teaching. Are you saying they are both wrong?

DW Exactly. If you ask ‘how is it wrong?’ I would say that neither manifestation, nor teaching transforms character. Charismatics flail at the dead horse of experience, evangelicals at teaching, but neither leads to transformation spiritually. The only thing that transforms us spiritually is the action of following Christ. You seek to follow, you fail and you learn. But in order to engage in following, you have to have a clear understanding of life in the kingdom of God; that you are accepted by the grace of God in Jesus and that lays the foundation for as much true doctrine as you can manage and as much manifestation of the Spirit as you can stand.

How Does the Disciple Live?
http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=103

How the disciple lives naturally comes out of who the disciple is.

Dr. Dallas Willard - Interview by Bob Buford for Finishing Well
http://www.halftime.org/bobsnotes/interview.cfm
I'll put it in these terms, they know about these things but they do not believe them. They profess to believe them because they're expected to, but profession of belief doesn't carry the action. Only real belief carries action, and we're in a context where we have millions and millions of people who are professing Christians that do not believe what they profess because they've been taught the important thing is to profess it whether you believe it or not, and God would like that.


ENERGY & JOY: Taking God's Keys
The keys of the kingdom also unlock the joys of your calling.
http://dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=26
The abundance of God is not passively received, and does not happen to us by chance. The abundance of God is claimed and put into action by our active, intelligent pursuit of it. We must act in union with the flow of God's kingdom life that comes through our relationship with Jesus.

We cannot do this, of course, purely on our own. But we must act. Grace is contrasted with earning but not with effort. Well-directed, decisive, and sustained effort is the key to the keys of the kingdom and to the life of restful power in ministry.