Inspirational Quotes by Richard J. Foster
“He comes where we are, and he brings us the life we hunger for. An early report reads, “Life was in him, life that made sense of human existence” (John 1:4). To be the light of life, and to deliver God’s life to women and men where they are and as they are, is the secret of the enduring relevance of Jesus. Suddenly they are flying right-side up, in a world that makes sense.”
“And he will bring justice to the nations. He will not quarrel, nor scream at people. You will not be able to hear his voice above the chatter of the street. In bringing discernment of what is good and right to the point where it actually governs human existence, he will not use even the violence it takes to finish breaking a stick that is already cracked or smother a smoking wick. (Matt. 12:18–21, quoted from Isa. 42:1–4)”
“You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!”
“We simply cannot consider the earth apart from Christ’s footsteps imprinted upon it.”
“Little children, love one another.”
“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). The astonishing new reality in this mighty flow of the Spirit is how sovereignly God is bringing together streams of life that have been isolated from one another for a very long time.”
“God, what is man’s best gift to mankind? To be beautiful of soul and then let people see into your soul.”
“Celebration heartily done makes our deprivations and sorrows seem small, and we find in it great strength to do the will of our God because his goodness becomes so real to us.” —Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines8”
“To confess your sins to God is not to tell God anything God doesn’t already know. Until you confess them, however, they are the abyss between you. When you confess them, they become the Golden Gate Bridge.” —Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words”
“The humble man feels no jealousy or envy. He can praise God when others are preferred and blessed before him. He can bear to hear others praised and himself forgotten, because in God’s presence he has learned to say with Paul, “I be nothing” (2 Cor. 12:11). He has received the spirit of Jesus, who did not please Himself and did not seek His own honor, as the spirit of his life.” —Andrew Murray, Humility 6”
“all authentic prayer is a scraping of the heart whereby the dregs of the soul are offered up to God.”
“Solitude The creation of an open, empty space in our lives by purposefully abstaining from interaction with other human beings, so that, freed from competing loyalties, we can be found by God The”
“I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.” —C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms6”
“We are all subject to forgetfulness of God’s faithfulness in the past, laziness to act on the divine promise, and postponing until tomorrow what Jesus is asking of us today: childlike abandonment in trust.”
“But the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will buy them from you for a price: I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”
“The more guilt and shame that we have buried within ourselves, the more compelled we feel to seek relief through sin.”
“Against insurmountable obstacles and without a clue as to the outcome, the trusting heart says, 'Abba, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with boundless confidence, for you are my loving Father.”
“Lord, take as your right, and receive as my gift, all my freedom, my memory, my understanding and my will. Whatever I am and whatever I possess, you have given it to me; I restore it all to you again, to be at your disposal, according to your will. Give me only a love for you, and the gift of your grace; then I am rich enough, and ask for nothing more. —St. Ignatius of Loyola”
“Spiritual Disciplines involve doing what we can do to receive from God the power to do what we cannot.”
“Dallas Willard writes, “If you want to experience the flow of love as never before, the next time you are in a competitive situation, pray that the others around you will be more outstanding, more praised, and more used of God than yourself. If Christians were universally to do this for each other, the earth would soon be filled with the knowledge of God’s glory.”4”
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Richard J. Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. He has been a professor at Friends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides in Denver, Colorado. He earned his undergraduate degree at George Fox University in Oregon and his Doctor of Pastoral Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Foster is best known for his 1978 book Celebration of Discipline, which examines the inward disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation, and study in the Christian life, the outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, and the corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration. It has sold over one million copies. It was named by Christianity Today as one of the top ten books of the twentieth century.