the ragamuffin gospel

While I was on leave, I read "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennan Manning. Manning is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. I love his emphasis on a personal, relational, grace-full God, and the implication on us that this brings. I'll only give a couple of quotes here, because there are so many great things he says that I could fill up the page with them if I wrote them all out.

On Prayer:
" Pray as you can; don't pray as you can't (Don Chapman) ... A little child cannot do a bad colouring, nor can a child of God do bad prayer" (p 123-4)

On repentance and forgiveness:
"[The saved sinner] knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven" (p 54)

On guilt:
"Preoccupation with self is always a major component of unhealthy guilt ... Yes, we feel guilt over sins, but healthy guilt is one which acknowledges the wrong done and feels remorse, but then is free to embrace the forgiveness that has been offered" (p 90)

On our past:
"Whatever past achievements might bring us honour, whatever past disgraces might make us blush, all have been crucified with Christ and exist no more except in the deep recesses of eternity, where 'good is enhanced into glory and evil miraculously established as part of the grater good'" (p 36)

On "needing" to feel loved:
"In trembling insecurity the disciple pleads for proofs from the Lord that her affection is returned. If she does not receive them, she is frustrated and starts to suspect that her relationship with Jesus is all over or that it never even existed. If she does receive consolation, she is reassured but only for a time. She presees for further proofs - each one less convincing than the one that went before" (p 89)

On the Kingdom:
"The Kingdom is not an exlcusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious cast of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle" (p 7)

To finish, a prayer Manning quotes from Charles Foucauld:

"Abba, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with me what you will: I accept all. Let your will be done in me and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and I give myself, surrender myself int your hands without reserve, with boundless confidence, for you are my Father" (p 94)