Wisdom from Brennan Manning

"We are God's children not by our merit but by God's mercy."

"To grasp the truth of the gospel is to fall on our faces in both sorrow and gratitude."

"Authentic, evangelical faith cannot be separated from a readiness to act on the Word of God according to present opportunities. Whenever faith is accepted merely as a closed system of well-defined doctrines, we lose contact with the living God. The faith that saves is a surrender to God."

"To believe that all Jesus calls us to is to be nice to each other is to substitute the Christ of Christian humanism for the Christ of Saint Paul."

"If the People of God are not hearing the call to repentance or claiming their power to fulfill it, is it because we ministers of the Word are preaching another Christ from the pulpit?"

"The ability to love oneself is the root and foundation of our ability to love others and to love God."

"If there are few Spirit-filled, power-laden, transparent Christians, it is because so few have plunged into the true life of Jesus and died to sin, selfishness, dishonesty, and degraded love."

"The road map into the mind of Christ is emblazoned with the sign of the Cross."

"We have softened the Cross by trivializing it (even to removing it in some of our churches), by fitting it neatly into our schematic theologizing, and by ignoring it in favor of the Resurrection."

"If you wish to speak of the Christian life, authentic spirituality, or the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you speak of Jesus Christ nailed to the Cross or you do not speak at all."

All quotes are from Brennan Manning's The Importance of Being Foolish: How to Think Like Jesus.