re: Ragamuffin thoughts

grace – dearoot

Finished chapters 3 and 4 tonight after our community group (on a side note I think I’m feeling a bit queasy after an e-mail I just received)…

Here are some more quotes I loved from Manning:

We miss Jesus’ point entirely when we use his words as weapons against others. They are to be taken personally by each of us.

The trouble with our ideals is that if we live up to all of them, we become impossible to live with.

…we don’t comprehend the love of Jesus Christ. Oh, we see a movie and resonate to what a young man and woman will endure for romantic love. We know that when the chips are down, if we love wildly enough we’ll fling life and caution to the winds for the one we love. But when it comes to God’s love in the broken, blood-drenched body of Jesus Christ, we get antsy and start to talk about theology, divine justice, God’s wrath and the heresy of universalism.

The saved sinner is prostrate in adoration, lost in wonder and praise. He knows repentance is not what we do in order to earn forgiveness; it is what we do because we have been forgiven. … the sequence of forgiveness and then repentance, rather than repentance and then forgiveness, is crucial for understanding the gospel of grace.

I LOVE THAT! How true and how often we forget. “You must repent and live up to our guidelines for membership before we’ll forgive you.” “You must repent and clean yourself up before we’ll let you into our fellowship.” “You can’t hold on to any of your bad habits if you want to be a part of our fellowship.” Oh if only each of us could understand God’s grace.

“Grace, grace. God’s grace. Grace that is greater than all my sins. Grace, grace. God’s grace. Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.”