Richard J. Foster Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Let's discipline ourselves so that our words are few and full.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.' ...It is time to awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy. And what about our problems? When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Stop trying to impress people with your clothes and impress them with your life.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God: it is a grace that is given.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer in action.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“If worship does not change us it has not been worship.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Just as worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, it has not been worship.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“To pray is to change. This is a great grace. How good of God to provide a path whereby our lives can be taken over by love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours, we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father. Its central reality is found 'in spirit and truth.' It is kindled within us only when the Spirit of God touches our human spirit.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Children do not find it difficult or complicated to talk to their parents, nor do they feel embarrassed to bring the simplest need to their attention. Neither should we hesitate to bring the simplest requests confidently to the Father.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Joy, not grit, is the hallmark of holy obedience. We need to be light-hearted in what we do to avoid taking ourselves too seriously. It is a cheerful revolt against self and pride.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and recognition. It will devise subtle, religiously acceptable means to call attention to the service rendered. If we stoutly refuse to give in to this lust of the flesh, we crucify it. Every time we crucify the flesh, we crucify our pride and arrogance.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Prayer frees us to be controlled by God. To pray is to change. There is no greater liberating force in the Christian life than prayer. To enter the gaze of the Holy is never to be the same. To bathe in the Light in quiet wonder and glad surrender is to be slowly, permanently transformed. There is a richer inward orientation, a deep hunger for communion. We feel as if we are being taken over by a new control Center, and so we are.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“..the true test of spirituality [is] in the freedom to live among people compassionately....Prayer frees us to be controlled by God.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Jesus Christ and all the writers of the New Testament call us to break free of mammon lust and live in joyous trust...They point us toward a way of living in which everything we have we receive as a gift, and everything we have is cared for by God, and everything we have is available to others when it is right and good. This reality frames the heart of Christian simplicity. It is the means of liberation and power to do what is right and to overcome the forces of fear and avarice.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God's great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of the Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicaed, Spirit-empowered peole. All of creation watches expectantly for the springing up of a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this likfe the life and power of the Kindgom of God. It happened before, it can happen again.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience.”
-- Richard J. Foster -
“Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit, simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justificat ion”
-- Richard J. Foster
