Quotes from Brennan Manning

You tell others about Me - that I am a loving God. Your words are glib. My words are written in the blood of My only Son.

I can state unequivocally that childlike surrender in trust is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship. And I would add that the supreme need in most of our lives is often the most overlooked—namely, the need for an uncompromising trust in the love of God. Furthermore, I would say that, while there are times when it is good to go to God as might a ragged beggar to the King of kings, it is vastly superior to approach God as a little child would approach his or her papa.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the privileged position of turkeys, nobodies, and marginal people on the fringes of society disclosed more dramatically than in Jesus' ministry of meal sharing. In modern times it is scarcely possible to appreciate the scandal Jesus caused by His table fellowship with sinners.

We encounter God in the ordinariness of life: not in the search for spiritual highs and extraordinary, mystical experiences, but in our simple presence in life.

Against insurmountable obstacles and without a clue as to the outcome, the trusting heart says, 'Abba, I surrender my will and my life to you without any reservation and with boundless confidence, for you are my loving Father.

But if I've learned anything about the world of grace, it's that failure is always a chance for a do-over.

In philosophy, the opposite of truth is error; in Scripture, the opposite of truth is a lie.

It is then I face a momentous decision. Shivering in the rags of my seventy-four years, I have two choices. I can escape below into skepticism and intellectualism, hanging on for dear life. Or, with radical amazement, I can stay on deck and boldly stand in surrendered faith to the truth of my belovedness, caught up in the reckless raging fury that they call the love of God. And learn to pray.

When "doing" becomes divorced from "being", pious thoughts become a poor substitute for washing dirty feet.

the person with an abiding spirit of gratitude is the one who trusts God. The foremost quality of a trusting disciple is gratefulness.

Shame--what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down.

He is the only God man has ever heard of who loves sinners. False gods—the gods of human manufacturing—despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do.