Richard Foster (theologian) - Celebration of discipline (1978)

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God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.

Richard Foster
Forms and rituals do not produce worship, nor does the disuse of forms and rituals. We can use all the right techniques and methods, we can have the best possible liturgy, but we have not worshiped the Lord until Spirit touches spirit.

Richard Foster
The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

Richard Foster
Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God's great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it.

Richard Foster
We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy. 'We buy things we do not want to impress people we do not like.'...It is time to awaken to the fact that conformity to a sick society is to be sick.

Richard Foster
In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of the Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicaed, Spirit-empowered peole. All of creation watches expectantly for the springing up of a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this likfe the life and power of the Kindgom of God. It happened before, it can happen again.

Richard Foster
There is an old proverb to the effect that 'all those who open their mouths, close their eyes!' The purpose of silence and solitude is to be able to see and hear. Control rather than no noise is the key to silence. James saw clearly that the person who could control his tounge is perfect (James 3:1-12). Under the Discipline of silence and solitude we learn when to speak and when to refrain from speaking.

Richard Foster
Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit, simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justificat ion

Richard Foster
Owning things is an obsession in our culture. If we own it, we feel we can control it; and if we control it, we feel it will give us more pleasure. The idea is an illusion.

Richard Foster
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 Foster
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 Foster
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 Foster
It is an occupational hazard of devout folk to become stuffy bores. This should not be. Of all people, we should be the most free, alive, interesting.

Richard Foster
Fasting reminds us that we are sustained by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). Food does not sustain us; God sustains us.

Richard Foster
Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem.

Richard Foster
It is Stoicism that demands a closed universe, not the Bible.

Richard Foster
The person who does not seek the kingdom first does not seek it at all, regardless of how worthy the idolatry that he or she has substituted for it.

Richard Foster
In intellectual honesty, we should be willing to study and explore the spiritual life with all the rigor and determination we would give to any field of research.

Richard Foster
Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.

Richard Foster
May God give you - and me- the courage, the wisdom, the strength always to hold the kingdom of God as the number one priority of our lives. To do so is to live in simplicity.

Richard Foster
When we genuinely believe that inner transformation is God's work and not ours, we can put to rest our passion to set others straight.

Richard Foster
Children do not find it difficult or complicated to talk to their parents, nor do they feel embarrassed to bring the simplest need to their attention. Neither should we hesitate to bring the simplest requests confidently to the Father.

Richard Foster
Stop trying to impress people with your clothes and impress them with your life.

Richard Foster
Inward solitude has outward manifestations. There is the freedom to be alone, not in order to be away from people but in order to hear the divine Whisper better.

Richard Foster
If we think we will have joy only by praying and singing psalms, we will be disillusioned. But if we fill our lives with simple good things and constantly thank God for them, we will be joyful, that is, full of joy. And what about our problems? When we determine to dwell on the good and excellent things in life, we will be so full of those things that they will tend to swallow our problems.

Richard Foster
In worship an increased power steals its way into the heart sanctuary, an increased compassion grows in the soul. To worship is to change.

Richard Foster
Go another step. Try to live one entire day without words at all. Do it not as a law, but as an experiment. Note your feelings of helplessness and excessive dependence upon words to communicate. Try to find new ways to relate to tohers that are not dependent upon words. Enjoy, savor the day. Learn from it.

Richard Foster
Four times a year withdraw for three to four hours for the purpose of reorienting your life goals

Richard Foster
As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Holy obedience saves worship from becoming an opiate, an escape from the pressing needs of modern life.

Richard Foster
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 Foster