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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

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Richard J. Foster
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More quotes by Richard J. Foster

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One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are so accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust.
Richard J. Foster
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If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark.
Richard J. Foster
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In the spiritual life only one thing produces genuine joy and that is obedience.
Richard J. Foster
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The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its way into our experience, then we have missed the point of the Disciplines. We are dealing with actions, not merely states of mind.
Richard J. Foster
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Over-consumption is a cancer eating away at our spiritual vitals. It distances us from the great masses of broken bleeding humanity. It converts us into materialists. We become less able to ask the moral questions.
Richard J. Foster
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You see, we need instruction on how to possess money without being possessed by money. We need help to learn how to own things without treasuring them. We need the discipline that will allow us to live simply while managing great wealth and power.
Richard J. Foster
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The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.
Richard J. Foster
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Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father.
Richard J. Foster
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Let's discipline ourselves so that our words are few and full.
Richard J. Foster
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Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.
Richard J. Foster
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To stand before the Holy One of eternity is to change. Resentments cannot be held with the same tenacity when we enter his gracious light.
Richard J. Foster
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Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.
Richard J. Foster
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Goals are discovered, not made.
Richard J. Foster
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We who have turned our lives over to Christ need to know how very much he longs to eat with us, to commune with us. He desires a perpetual Eucharistic feast in the inner sanctuary of the heart.
Richard J. Foster
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Simplicity is freedom.
Richard J. Foster
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Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.
Richard J. Foster
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Our God is not made of stone. His heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God. God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude.
Richard J. Foster
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The lust for affluence in contemporary society has become psychotic it has completely lost touch with reality.
Richard J. Foster
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Conformity to a sick society is to be sick.
Richard J. Foster
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In the context of Quaker worship, it is perfectly appropriate for any person in the congregation to speak a timely word from the Lord.
Richard J. Foster