Favorite quotes from Dallas Willard’s book Renovation of the heart, which I keep re-reading this Summer!
Talking about the social dimension of who we are, and why love others:
“When we are lost to God, we are also lost to ourselves: we do not know where we are or how to get where we want to go.”
“Our relationship with others cannot be right unless we see those others in their relationship to God. Through others he comes to us and we only really find others when we see them in Him.
If someone says I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar, John unapologetically said, for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. We only live as we should when we are in a right relation to God and to other human beings—thus, the two greatest commandments!”
 This is one of the reasons people matter and have dignity, for they are a medium through which to encounter God! Just as we ourselves are, when viewed from the correct perspective as we see in Psalm 139, where David celebrates himself as a poem of God. If our camera is in heaven, we can view ourselves and others properly-not egotistically, but with wonder, and love accordingly—i.e. as He loves us.
Jesus came to give us a perfect photo of God; and lives that we can see others and ourselves more as He does. Prayer teaches that much. When we sit with Him as Priest, we start to sense his sight thoughts and feelings about each person and situation. That is the practice of prayer. And is the foundation of any real ministry.
We have to see others backdropped by God in order to really love them. Our ethics is empowered by our vision. Otherwise we are just “trying” to be kind (tree of knowledge, not the tree of His Life!). But if we see the nature of Reality well, we will naturally move into loving all creatures and all of creation.
A tree is rotten if the fruit is hatred of others.
It’s an ontological (how Reality actually is) approach to how and why to live well. If Reality is like this, then we should love one another. Nice section in this great and, i think, wise book. Great Summer read! Wish I’d of had this book in Art Therapy school, as it breaks down human psychology and spirituality in a very practical and useful way without being pretentious. Good teachers are like that.