It is the responsibility of every Christ-centred follower to carve out a satisfying life under the loving rule of God or else sin will start to look good.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of actively creating a fulfilling life in alignment with divine principles to avoid the allure of sin.
Dallas Willard's quote highlights the necessity for individuals who follow Christ to take responsibility for their lives by intentionally shaping their existence according to God's teachings. It suggests that without this proactive effort to live meaningfully under God's guidance, one may be tempted by the enticing nature of sinful behavior, indicating that spiritual discipline and intentional living are crucial for a fulfilling life.
In practice
In a sermon, to encourage the congregation to reflect on their lives and their choices.
The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as βChristiansβ will become disciples β students, apprentices, practitioners β of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.
The first act of love is always the giving of attention.
So many people would like to have guidance from God because obviously, if you have a word from God, it's the best possible thing. But they don't relate that to life as a whole. Often they want guidance as a way of opting out of the responsibility of making decisions.
What is truly profound is thought to be stupid and trivial, or worse, boring, while what is actually stupid and trivial is thought to be profound. That is what it means to fly upside down.
The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.
When I left home after graduating high school, I left as a migrant agricultural worker with a Modern Library edition of Plato in my duffel bag. It sounds kind of crazy, but I loved it. I loved the stuff. Before I knew there was a subject called philosophy, I loved it.
We look up at the same stars and see such different things." - Jon Snow
I am only at home in the present.
With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.
I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded.
The law of the Creator, which invests every human being with an inalienable title to freedom, cannot be repealed by any interior law which asserts that man is property.
If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.