Brennan Manning
Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.Collection: Trust
My trust in God flows out of the experience of his loving me, day in and day out, whether the day is stormy or fair, whether I'm sick or in good health, whether I'm in a state of grace or disgrace. He comes to me where I live and loves me as I am.Collection: Health
The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust - not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.Collection: Trust
Ruthless trust ultimately comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise.Collection: Faith
Suffering, failure, loneliness, sorrow, discouragement, and death will be part of your journey, but the Kingdom of God will conquer all these horrors. No evil can resist grace forever.Collection: Failure
By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived.Collection: Thankful
Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works - but our lives refute our faith.Collection: Faith
Sin and forgiveness and falling and getting back up and losing the pearl of great price in the couch cushions but then finding it again, and again, and again? Those are the stumbling steps to becoming Real, the only script that's really worth following in this world or the one that's coming.Collection: Forgiveness
Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father.Collection: Trust
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.
God loves you unconditionally, as you are and not as you should be, because nobody is as they should be.
Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat out denial of the gospel of grace.
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.
We have been given God in our souls and Christ in our flesh. We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt.
Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try and find something or someone that it cannot cover. Grace is enough.
Too many Christians are living in a house of fear and not in the house of love.
I believe that the real difference in the American church is not between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and charismatics, nor between Republicans and Democrats. The real difference is between the aware and the unaware.
The Word we study has to be the Word we pray.
Without exposure to potential failure, there is no risk.
The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.Collection: Christian
Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.Collection: Spiritual
I have a word for you. I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin, shame, dishonesty and degraded love that has darkened your past. Right now I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship. And my word is this: I dare you to trust that I love you just as you are, and not as you should be. Because you’re never going to be as you should be.Collection: Prayer
Do you believe that the God of Jesus loves you beyond worthiness and unworthiness, beyond fidelity and infidelity—that he loves you in the morning sun and in the evening rain—that he loves you when your intellect denies it, your emotions refuse it, your whole being rejects it. Do you believe that God loves without condition or reservation and loves you this moment as you are and not as you should be.Collection: God
In every encounter we either give life or we drain it; there is no neutral exchange.Collection: Life
You will trust God to the degree you know you are loved by Him.Collection: Degrees
Letting ourselves be loved by God is more important than loving God.Collection: Important
If in our hearts we really don't believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.Collection: Lying
Prayer is first and foremost an act of loveCollection: Prayer
Lord, when I feel that what I'm doing is insignificant and unimportant, help me to remember that everything I do is significant and important in your eyes, because you love me and you put me here, and no one else can do what I am doing in exactly the way I do it.Collection: Eye
Our culture says that ruthless competition is the key to success. Jesus says that ruthless compassion is the purpose of our journey.Collection: Jesus
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion. God's love for you and his choice of you constitute your worth. Accept that, and let it become the most important thing in your life.Collection: Self
What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness. Buffeted by the fickle winds of failure, battered by their own unruly emotions, and bruised by rejection and ridicule, authentic disciples may have stumbled and frequently fallen, endured lapses and relapses, gotten handcuffed to the fleshpots and wandered into a far county. Yet, they kept coming back to Jesus.Collection: Jesus
In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.Collection: Healing
My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.Collection: Jesus
This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was fixed to a cross, and died whispering forgiveness on us all.Collection: Son
God is loving us - you and me - this moment, just as we are and not as we should be.Collection: Moments
The Christ within who is our hope of glory is not a matter of theological debate or philosophical speculation. He is not a hobby, a part-time project, a good theme for a book, or a last resort when all human effort fails. He is our life, the most real fact about us. He is the power and wisdom of God dwelling within us.Collection: Real
The only kind of love that helps anyone grow is unconditional love.Collection: Unconditional Love
Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.Collection: Love
The deepest desire of our hearts is for union for God. God created us for union with himself. This is the original purpose of our lives.Collection: Heart
I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God.Collection: Fall
Jesus reveals a God who does not demand but who gives; who does not oppress but who raises up; who does not wound but who heals; who does not condemn but forgives.Collection: Jesus
I knew there was only one place to go. I sank down into the center of my soul, grew still, and listened to the Rabbi's heartbeat.Collection: Soul
All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious GodCollection: Gracious
The ragamuffin gospel says we can't lose, because we have nothing to lose.Collection: Nothing To Lose
I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a benign teddy bear that there is no aberrant behavior or desire of mine that he will not condone. I want a relationship with the Abba of Jesus, who is infinitely compassionate with my brokenness and at the same time an awesome, incomprehensible, and unwieldy Mystery.Collection: Jesus
For several centuries, the Celtic church of Ireland was spared the Greek dualism of matter and spirit. They regarded the world with the clear vision of faith. When a young Celtic monk saw his cat catch a salmon swimming in shallow water, he cried, "The power of the Lord is in the paw of the cat!Collection: Cat
To affirm a person is to see the good in them that they cannot see in themselves and to repeat it in spite of appearances to the contrary. Please, this is not some Pollyanna optimism that is blind to the reality of evil, but rather like a fine radar system that is tuned in to the true, the good, and the beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me..." As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.Collection: Simple