Quotes by Richard J. Foster

About Richard J. Foster:

Richard James Foster is a Christian theologian and author in the Quaker tradition. His writings speak to a broad Christian audience. Born in 1942, in New Mexico, Foster has been a professor at Friends University and pastor of Evangelical Friends churches. Foster resides in Denver, Colorado. He earned his undergraduate degree at George Fox University in Oregon and his Doctor of Pastoral Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary,and received an honorary doctorate from Houghton College.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions for the growing of grain. He cultivates the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain....

Richard J. Foster

Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.

Richard J. 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, rede...

Richard J. 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 ...

Richard J. 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 J. Foster

Because we lack a divine Center our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things. We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch wit...

Richard J. Foster

The great writings interact with one another. They cannot be read in isolation..

Richard J. Foster

To use good things to our own ends is always a false religion

Richard J. Foster

The mind will always take on an order conforming to that upon which it concentrates.

Richard J. Foster

Nothing disciplines the inordinate desires of the flesh like service, and nothing transforms the desires of the flesh like serving in hiddenness. The flesh whines against service but screams against hidden service. It strains and pulls for honour and...

Richard J. Foster

Law will take over because law always carries with it a sense of security and manipulative power.

Richard J. Foster

Confession is a difficult Discipline for us because we all too often view the believing community as a fellowship of saints before we see it as a fellowship of sinners. We feel that everyone else has advanced so far into holiness that we are isolated...

Richard J. Foster

Celebration comes when the common features of life are redeemed.

Richard J. Foster

Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.

Richard J. Foster

I am not posing these questions only to the world at large. I query us who own Christ as our life. Can God be pleased by the vast and increasing inequities among us? Is he not grieved by our arrogant accumulation, while Christian brothers and sisters...

Richard J. Foster

Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.

Richard J. Foster

But, and here comes the rub, all of us feel that we are in complete control of our desire for things. We would never admit to an ungovernable spirit of covetousness. The problem is that we, like the alcoholic, are unable to recognize the disease once...

Richard J. Foster

And so I urge you to still every motion that is not rooted in the Kingdom. Become quiet, hushed, motionless until you are finally centered. Strip away all excess baggage and nonessential trappings until you have come into the stark reality of the Kin...

Richard J. Foster

Silence frees us from the need to control others. One reason we can hardly bear to remain silent is that it makes us feel so helpless. We are accustomed to relying upon words to manage and control others. A frantic stream of words flows from us in an...

Richard J. Foster

In a world of limited resources, our wealth is at the expense of the poor. To put it simply, if we have it, others cannot.

Richard J. Foster

If you are too busy to read, you are too busy.

Richard J. Foster

Author Bio

  • NameRichard J. Foster
  • DescriptionAmerican Quaker theologian
  • AliasesRichard James Foster
  • Born1942
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionAuthor; Theologian