Ragamuffin Gospel Quotes

• 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

  Jesus, Lying, Heart

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.48, Multnomah

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• Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

  Rich Mullins

  Jesus, Broken, Christianity

  Concert in Lufkin, Texas, www.kidbrothers.net. July 19, 1997.

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• 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

  Spiritual, Needs, Cosmetics

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.16, Multnomah

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• 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.

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Done, Awareness

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.19, Multnomah

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• When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games. Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.

  Brennan Manning

  Hate, Believe, Angel

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.17, Multnomah

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• Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

  Rich Mullins

  Beautiful, Jesus, Children

  Lufkin, Texas Concert Transcript, www.kidbrothers.net. July 19, 1997.

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• 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.

  Brennan Manning

  Christian, Jesus, Acknowledge Him

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• All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God

  Brennan Manning

  Gracious, Adulation, Charismatic

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.17, Multnomah

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• We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.

  Brennan Manning

  Holy Ground, Names, Mouths

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.68, Multnomah

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• The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes. It obliterates the two-class citizenship theory operative in many American churches. For grace proclaims the awesome truth that all is gift. All that is good is ours, not by right, but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.

  Brennan Manning

  Hero, Class, Two

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.19, Multnomah

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• 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

  Jesus, Compassion, Forgiving

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.47, Multnomah

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• Nevertheless, the central affirmation of the Reformation stands: through no merit of ours, but by his mercy, WE HAVE BEEN RESTORED to a right relationship with God through the life, death, and resurrection of his beloved Son. This is the Good News, the gospel of Grace

  Brennan Manning

  Son, Grace, Merit

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.16, Multnomah

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• Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.

  Brennan Manning

  Heart, Flesh, Stones

  Brennan Manning (2015). “Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging”, p.51, NavPress

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• Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.

  Brennan Manning

  Love, Self, Identity

  Brennan Manning (2015). “Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging”, p.42, NavPress

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• False gods - the gods of human understanding - despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do. But of course this is almost too incredible for us to accept.

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Father, Understanding

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• 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

  Beautiful, Faces, Honest

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.55, Multnomah

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• To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God's grace means.

  Brennan Manning

  Mean, Dark, Light

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.17, Multnomah

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• 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.

  Brennan Manning

  Hurt, Believe, Soul

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.17, Multnomah

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• The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

  Brennan Manning

  Temptation, Age, Looks

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.81, Multnomah

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• The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. 'They won't let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.' 'What are you complaining about?' said God. 'They won't let Me in either.

  Brennan Manning

  Church, Complaining, Stories

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.22, Multnomah

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• 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 denial of the gospel of grace.

  Brennan Manning

  Grace, Trying, Guilt

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.13, Multnomah

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• In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve.

  Brennan Manning

  Love, Soldier, Spiritual Life

  Brennan Manning (2015). “Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging”, p.13, NavPress

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• God is a kooky God who can scarcely bear to be without us.

  Brennan Manning

  Bears

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.107, Multnomah

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• If you really want to understand a man, don't just listen to what he says but watch what he does.

  Maurice Blondel

  Men, Doe, Watches

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• The Word we study has to be the Word we pray.

  Brennan Manning

  Study, Praying

  Brennan Manning (2013). “NIV, Ragamuffin Bible, eBook: Meditations for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Brokenhearted”, p.1285, Harper Collins

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