Brennan Manning Quotes
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Today on planet Earth, may you experience the wonder and beauty of yourself as Abba’s Child and temple of the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ.
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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.
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The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the yaw and pitch of moral struggle.
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Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.
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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.
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The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can't save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.
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The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust.
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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.
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Ruthless trust ultimately comes down to this: faith in the person of Jesus and hope in his promise.
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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.
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God is loving us - you and me - this moment, just as we are and not as we should be.
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In human beings, love is a quality, a high-prized virtue; in God, love is His identity.
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Rome is burning, Jesus says. Drop your fiddle, change your life and come to Me. Let go of the good days that never were - a regimented church you never attended, traditional virtues you never practiced, legalistic obedience you never honored, and a sterile orthodoxy you never accepted. The old era is done. The decisive inbreak of God has happened.
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All I have learned through trial and error is to stay alert and aware, especially God smiling @ our silliness.
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The secret of the mystery is: God is always greater. No matter how great we think Him to be, His love is always greater.
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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.
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Without fear I can acknowledge that the authentic Christian tension is not between life and death, but between life and life.
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What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears.
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Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.
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It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker.
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The most powerful thing that can happen in the place of prayer is that you yourself become the prayer. You leave the prayer room able as Jesus' hands and feet on earth. This is what it means to pray continually (without ceasing), to see with the eyes of Jesus and to hear with His ears with every waking moment.
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Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it.
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The only kind of love that helps anyone grow is unconditional love.
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We are enveloped in peace, whether or not we feel ourselves to be at peace. By that I mean the peace that passes understanding is not a subjective sensation of peace; if we are in Christ, we are in peace even when we feel no peace.