Inspirational Quotes by Richard J. Foster

“The Beatitudes simply cannot be “good news” if they are understood as a set of “how-tos” for achieving blessedness. They would then only amount to a new legalism. They would not serve to throw open the kingdom—anything but. They would impose a new brand of Phariseeism, a new way of closing the door—as well as some very gratifying new possibilities for the human engineering of righteousness.”

“Anger indulged, instead of simply waved off, always has in it an element of self-righteousness and vanity. Find a person who has embraced anger, and you find a person with a wounded ego.”

“There is also a widespread impression that the laws of natural science make everything intelligible—or would, if we could only get the “right” laws. But the laws of science make nothing intelligible by themselves, and for clear reasons. There must be certain “initial conditions” before the laws of science can explain anything. In their “explaining,” those laws have to have something from which to start. And they obviously do not explain the existence or nature of those very conditions that must be in place before they can explain anything. Science, then, may explain many interesting and important things, but it does not explain existence. Nor does it explain why the laws of science are the laws of nature.5 And it does not explain science itself.6”

“This “concrete” or contextual method of teaching is obviously very different from how we attempt to teach and learn today, and the difference makes it difficult for us to grasp what precisely it is that Jesus is teaching. What he is saying cannot be understood unless we appreciate how he teaches, and we cannot appreciate how he teaches unless we take into account something of the world within which his teaching occurred. We must recognize, first of all, that the aim of the popular teacher in Jesus’ time was not to impart information, but to make a significant change in the lives of the hearers. Of”

“How can one in a leadership position not be haunted by what the Lord said to his prophet Ezekiel: Everyone is talking about you all the time. They say, “Come and let’s hear what the word is from the Lord.” And they sit before you as my people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them. For their mouths talk devotion but their hearts seek wicked gains. Why, you are just like one who sings about love with a beautiful voice and a well-played instrument. They hear what you are saying, but do not do it. (Ezek. 33:31–32)”

“We automatically remember what makes a real difference in our life. The secret of the great teacher is to speak words, to foster experiences, that impact the active flow of the hearer’s life. That is what Jesus did by the way he taught. He tied his teachings to concrete events that make up the hearers’ lives. He aimed his sayings at their hearts and habits as these were revealed in their daily lives.”

“We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world. Any doubt on this point gives force to the soul-numbing idea that God’s commandments are, after all, only for his benefit and enjoyment, and that in the final analysis we must look out for ourselves. When the “moral failures” of well-known Christians (and unknown Christians, for that matter) are examined, they always turn out to be based on the idea that God has required them to serve in such a way that they themselves must “take care of their own needs” rather than being richly provided for by God. Resentment toward God, not love, is the outcome, and from such a condition it is impossible to consistently do the deeds of love.”

“The purpose of God with human history is nothing less than to bring out of it—small and insignificant as it seems from the biological and naturalistic point of view—an eternal community of those who were once thought to be just “ordinary human beings.”8 Because of God’s purposes for it, this community will, in its way, pervade the entire created realm and share in the government of it. God’s precreation intention to have that community as a special dwelling place or home will be realized. He will be its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant. But why? What is the point of it? The purpose is to meet what can only be described as a need of God’s nature as totally competent love. It is the same purpose that manifests itself in his creation of the world. Only in the light of such a creation and such a redeemed community is it possible for God to be known in his deepest nature. They make it possible for God to be known. And love unknown is love unfulfilled. Moreover, the welfare of every conscious being in existence depends upon their possession of this knowledge of God.”

“Mystery” means, in the language of the New Testament, something that had long remained hidden but then came to be known for the first time. The”

“Similar teaching, training, and guidance must be given with reference to the other aspects of the disciples’ lives: body, love and sexuality, marriage and children, success with work and jobs. The object in each case is to enable the disciple to be thankful for who they are and what they have. And much the same progression will be required: from honesty to acceptance to compassion and forgiveness and then on to thankfulness to God and the honoring of our lives in all of the aspects indicated. And”

“Thus, if we hear only the word water or see it written down somewhere, we do not know whether it is a verb or a noun. Hence we cannot know what it refers to or what it is about. If the remainder of a sentence is given, however, it may be either one: as in “Water my plants while I’m away,” where it is a verb, or “Water is essential to life on this planet,” where it is a noun. Events in a human life are like that, and so is a human life as a whole, as well as human life itself. They resemble the opening words in an unfinished sentence, paragraph, chapter, or book. In a sense we can identify them and grasp them, but we cannot know what they mean and really are until we know what comes later. Thus we are always seeking the meaning of events we live through and of our lives themselves. We wonder about the meaning of historical events and personages, or even of human history itself. And it is always true that meaning is found, when it is found, in some larger context. From Jesus we learn of the ultimate context, God and his kingdom. In the future phases of that kingdom lies the meaning of our lives and, indeed, of the history of the earth of which we are a part. Jesus insisted, as we have seen, upon the present reality of the “kingdom of the heavens” and made that the basis of his gospel. But he also recognized that there was a future fullness to the kingdom, as well as an everlasting enjoyment of life in God far transcending the earth and life on it.”

“It is being included in the eternal life of God that heals all wounds and allows us to stop demanding satisfaction. What really matters, of a personal nature, once it is clear that you are included? You have been chosen. God chooses you. This is the message of the kingdom.”

“we can be sure that heaven in the sense of our afterlife is just our future in this universe. There is not another universe besides this one. God created the heavens and the earth. That’s it. And much of the difficulty in having a believable picture of heaven and hell today comes from the centuries-long tendency to “locate” them in “another reality” outside the created universe.”

“Let us now be perfectly clear. Your life is not something from which you can stand aside and consider what it would have been like had you had a different one. There is no “you” apart from your actual life. You are not separate from your life, and in that life you must find the goodness of God. Otherwise, you will not believe that he has done well by you, and you will not truly be at peace with him.”

“if we think we are facing an irresistible cosmic force of evil, it will invariably lead to giving in and giving up—usually with very little resistance. If you can convince yourself that you are helpless, you can then stop struggling and just “let it happen.” That will seem a great relief—for a while. You can once more be a normal human being. But then you will have to deal with the consequences. And for normal human beings those are very severe.”

“Frank Laubach wrote of how, in his personal experiment of moment-by-moment submission to the will of God, the fine texture of his work and life experience was transformed. In January of 1930 he began to cultivate the habit of turning his mind to Christ for one second out of every minute.16 After only four weeks he reported, “I feel simply carried along each hour, doing my part in a plan which is far beyond myself. This sense of cooperation with God in little things is what so astonishes me, for I never have felt it this way before. I need something, and turn round to find it waiting for me. I must work, to be sure, but there is God working along with me.”17 From a lonely missionary post in the Philippines, God raised Frank Laubach to the status of Christian world statesman and spokesman for Christ. He founded the World Literacy Crusade, still in operation today, and without any political appointment he was influential on United States foreign policy in the post-World War II years. But he was forever and foremost Christ’s man, and always knew that his brilliant ideas and incredible energy and effectiveness derived from his practice of constant conscious interface with God.”

“We will never have the easy, unhesitating love of God that makes obedience to Jesus our natural response unless we are absolutely sure that it is good for us to be, and to be who we are. This means we must have no doubt that the path appointed for us by when and where and to whom we were born is good, and that nothing irredeemable has happened to us or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.”

“Indeed, by taking the title Son of man, he staked his claim to be all that the human being was originally supposed to be—and surely much more.”

“Therefore it is primarily in the body and its social context that the work must be done to replace wrong habits with automatic responses that flow with the kingdom of Jesus and sustain themselves from its power. Certainly there must first come the profound inward turnings of repentance and faith. But the replacement of habits remains absolutely essential to anyone who is to “hear and do” and thus build his or her house on the rock. Without it, direct efforts in the moment of action to do what is right will seldom succeed.”

“Thus by proclaiming blessed those who in the human order are thought hopeless, and by pronouncing woes over those human beings regarded as well off, Jesus opens the kingdom of the heavens to everyone.”