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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• A saint is not someone who is good but who experiences the goodness of God.

  Brennan Manning

  Saint, Goodness, Goodness Of God

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

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• The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer.-

  Brennan Manning

  Prayer, Thinking, Firsts

  Brennan Manning (2011). “The Signature of Jesus”, p.198, Multnomah

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• It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker.

  Brennan Manning

  Fall, Cheese, Crackers

  Brennan Manning, John Blase (2011). “All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir”, p.103, David C Cook

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• 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

  Running, Men, Law

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.122, Multnomah

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• 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

  Spiritual, Jesus, Believe

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.85, Multnomah

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• I am deeply distressed by what I only can call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself... God cannot be confined within the covers of a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.

  Brennan Manning

  Christian, Book, Thinking

  Brennan Manning (2011). “The Signature of Jesus”, p.174, Multnomah

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• How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

  Brennan Manning

  Brother, People, Confusion

  Brennan Manning, Michael W. Smith (2000). “The ragamuffin Gospel”, Multnomah

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• Reality, truth, and Jesus Christ are incredibly open-ended

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Reality, Christ

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.44, Multnomah

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• Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of KNOWING Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

  Brennan Manning

  Religious, Jesus, Book

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.29, Multnomah

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• Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind games or pop psychology. IT IS AN ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace.

  Brennan Manning

  Self Esteem, Positive Thinking, Acceptance

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.32, Multnomah

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• The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist.

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Son, Blood

  Brennan Manning, John Blase (2013). “Dear Abba: Morning and Evening Prayer”, p.66, RosettaBooks

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• Do the truth quietly without display.

  Brennan Manning

  Display

  Brennan Manning (2008). “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out”, p.90, Multnomah

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• I have been seized by the power of a great affection.

  Brennan Manning

  Jesus, Affection, Has Beens

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• When a man or woman is truly honest, it is virtually impossible to insult them personally.

  Brennan Manning

  Men, Impossible, Honest

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

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• How glorious the splendor of a human heart that trusts that it is loved!

  Brennan Manning

  Heart, Splendor, Glorious

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• Silent solitude makes true speech possible and personal. If I am not in touch with my own belovedness, then I cannot touch the sacredness of others. If I am estranged from myself, I am likewise a stranger to others.

  Brennan Manning

  Solitude, Identity, Juicy

  Brennan Manning (2015). “Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging”, p.39, NavPress

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• The North American Church is at a critical juncture. The gospel of grace is being confused and compromised by silence, seduction, and outright subversion. The vitality of the faith is being jeopardized. The lying slogans of the fixers who carry religion like a sword of judgment pile up with impunity. Let ragamuffins everywhere gather as a confessing Church to cry out in protest. Revoke the licenses of religious leaders who falsify the idea of God. Sentence them to three years in solitude with the Bible as their only companion.

  Brennan Manning

  Religious, Confused, Lying

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• Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.

  Brennan Manning

  Distance, Church, Sin

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

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