Reflections for Ragamuffins Quotes

“When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments, and the surprises of the Spirit. Evangelical faith is bartered for cozy, comfortable piety. A failure of nerve and an unwillingness to risk distorts God into a bookkeeper, and the gospel of grace is swapped for the security of religious bondage.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“Life can be taken out of others in rivulets and drops, in the small daily failures of inattention, that bitterest fruit of self-absorption, as surely as by terrible strokes to their hearts.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“To prefer to be the servant rather than the lord of the household is the path of downward mobility in an upwardly mobile culture. To taunt the idols of prestige, honor, and recognition, to refuse to take oneself seriously or to take seriously others who take themselves seriously, and to freely embrace the servant lifestyle—these are the attitudes that bear the stamp of authentic discipleship.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“How readily we push Jesus Christ off his judgment seat and take our place there to pronounce on others (though we've neither the knowledge nor the authority to judge anyone.)

None of us has ever seen a motive. Therefore, we don't know, we can't do anything more than suspect what inspires the action of another.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“Christians are a people of hope to the extent that others can find in us a source of strength and joy. If not, our profession of faith 'by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary and became man' is as academic, tentative, and hopeless as the alcoholic who promises, 'I'll quit tomorrow.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“If we continue to focus solely on the sinner/saint duality in our person and conduct, while ignoring the raging opposition between the Pharisee and the child, spiritual growth will come to an abrupt standstill.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“When I am divided within myself, when I am so preoccupied with my own sins, egocentricity, and moral failures that I cannot hear the anguished cry of others, then I have subtly reestablished self as the center of my focus and concern.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“The success or failure of a given day is measured by the quality of our interest and compassion toward those around us. We define ourselves by our response to human need. The question is not how we feel about our neighbor but what we have done for him or her. We reveal our heart in the way we listen to a child, speak to the person who delivers mail, bear an injury, and share our resources with the indigent.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“Jesus comes in the way of weakness, giving us the chance to love him and making us feel that we have something to give him.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“The number of people who have fled the church because it is too patient or compassionate is negligible; the number who have fled because they find it too unforgiving is tragic.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“The Christian response to evil—to aggression—is resistance, of course, but nonviolent resistance, the resistance of love, prayer, and accepted suffering. When Christians do anything else, they have parted company with Jesus. Nonviolence is the expression of a faith that the greatest power in human history is the forward movement of love. Nonviolence is as realistic as Jesus himself, and it is one with the cross of Christ's victory over evil. The question of whether or not nonviolent resistance 'works' should be referred not so much to the gain of an immediate victory as to the transformation of history from within by the converging forces of love.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“In order to be free for the outcasts, the sinners, the marginals in his social world, Jesus had to keep his distance from the expectations and the moralizing judgments of the authorities and the respectable. When he walked with the notorious sinner Zacchaeus through the streets of Jericho, he was not fazed by the scandalized murmurs of the crowd. He wasn't looking around anxiously, fearing what people might say. He was neither afraid of their rejection nor concerned about stepping on toes. He was going to the home of Zacchaeus because this sinner was a child of his Father, that was all. And that's the name of that tune.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“[…]healthy guilt is one that acknowledges the wrong done and feels remorse but then is free to embrace the forgiveness that has been offered. Healthy guilt focuses on the realization that all has been forgiven, the wrong has been redeemed.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“What the father planted will be harvested, and nothing will get in the way. Not heresies, schisms, ecclesiastical blunders, defections, moral failures; not if the budget isn't balanced; not if I can't find a way to end this book; not persecutions or nuclear holocausts—nothing will obstruct the coming of the Kingdom.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“There is no escaping the gospel logic that all our thoughts, words, and deeds addressed to others are in a real way addressed to Christ himself.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“He was not poor that we might be rich. He was not mocked that we might be honored. He was not laughed at so that we could be lauded.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“The Lord is fine-tuned to the hates and loves, disappointments and delights, brokenness and togetherness, the fears, joys, and sorrows of each of us.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“[F]or whatever happens, the Lord is always risen.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“Jesus broke the law of tradition when the love of persons demanded it.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“If our faith is alive and luminous, we will be alert to moments, events and occasions when the power of the resurrection is brought to bear on our lives.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning

“If we let the Lion of Judah run loose as Lord of our lives, He will not want us to be poor, broken or sad. Yet He may allow it, knowing that in these conditions we are more likely to let Him make us rich, whole and happy.”
― Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins: Daily Devotions from the Writings of Brennan Manning