#ragamuffin

The beauty of the ragamuffin gospel lies in the insight it offers into Jesus: the essential tenderness of His heart, His way of looking at the world, His mode of relating to you and me. 'If you really want to understand a man, don't just listen to what he says, but watch what he does. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#ragamuffin-gospel #beauty

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#faithfulness #ragamuffin #faith

The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins, including the sins of the flesh; that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show compassion; but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders in the Spirit. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#forgive #ragamuffin #sin #sinners #forgiveness

He was obviously a very arrogant ragamuffin, and younger than she was, to boot. And he was wearing a necromancer's bells! Apart from that, he was quite handsome, which was another black mark as far as she was concerned. ↗

— Garth Nix

#handsome #ragamuffin #arrogance

There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#beauty

When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God's gift of grace. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#imagination

For Ragamuffins, God's name is Mercy. We see our darkness as a prized possession because it drives us into the heart of God. Without mercy our darkness would plunge us into despair - for some, self-destruction. Time alone with God reveals the unfathomable depths of the poverty of the spirit. We are so poor that even our poverty is not our own: It belongs to the mysterium tremendum of a loving God. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#mercy #poverty #prayer #ragamuffin #spirit

The confessing church of American Ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists but receiving a gift with open hands. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#grace #love #ragamuffins #love

At Sunday worship, as in every dimension of our existence, many of us pretend to believe we are sinners. Consequently, all we can do is pretend we have been forgiven. As a result, our whole spiritual life is pseudo-repentance and pseudo-bliss. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#jesus #sinner #the-ragamuffin-gospel #life

God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am. Because of this I don't need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept ownership of my poverty and powerlessness and neediness. ↗

— Brennan Manning

#love