The other day I picked up a book I have had for about 10 years...and never once sat down to read it. "Ragamuffin Gospel"...
I read through the entire first chapter(if you know me well, you know I don't enjoy reading, super ADD, and would rather flip through a colorful art book, or magazines, tearing out pretty pictures that inspire me- but these words from this forgotten book started melting into my heart. I had a pencil, and was underlining just about every other sentence...Many of the thoughts, Brennan Manning, was writing about in this first chapter, pierced my heart with joy, and also saddened me, all the same.
Brennan gets this thing called "God's Grace", but how many of God's creations have no clue. Some of the very thoughts the author was writing about have been thoughts, experiences, and questions I have been wrestling with the past 10 years...seemingly, now have shaped much of my mindset on my disagreements with the politics of the "church"...and the actions they often take towards sinners, just like themselves, like me.
Brennan gets this thing called "God's Grace", but how many of God's creations have no clue. Some of the very thoughts the author was writing about have been thoughts, experiences, and questions I have been wrestling with the past 10 years...seemingly, now have shaped much of my mindset on my disagreements with the politics of the "church"...and the actions they often take towards sinners, just like themselves, like me.
How blessed to truly be grasping the Grace God has for my family, the ones who don't believe there is a Jesus, and myself. Grace holds tightly to our being(clung to our mess), we just need to accept it, believe in it, and break down the hurt and shame we are shelled into...and have faith that God would want to give us something so unselfish... when we don't deserve it. Something often hard to do when we have a difficult time accepting ourselves.
The last part of this first chapter i read sums up my passion for this book so far...
“Because salvation is by grace through faith, I believe that among the
countless number of people standing in front of the throne and in front
of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palms in their hands
(see Revelation 7:9), I shall see the prostitute from the Kit-Kat Ranch
in Carson City, Nevada, who tearfully told me that she could find no
other employment to support her two-year-old son. I shall see the woman
who had an abortion and is haunted by guilt and remorse but did the best
she could faced with grueling alternatives; the businessman besieged
with debt who sold his integrity in a series of desperate transactions;
the insecure clergyman addicted to being liked, who never challenged his
people from the pulpit and longed for unconditional love; the sexually
abused teen molested by his father and now selling his body on the
street, who, as he falls asleep each night after his last 'trick',
whispers the name of the unknown God he learned about in Sunday school.
'But how?' we ask.
Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'
There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”
'But how?' we ask.
Then the voice says, 'They have washed their robes and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.'
There they are. There *we* are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life's tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.
My friends, if this is not good news to you, you have never understood the gospel of grace.”
-Brennan Manning
beautiful. simply beautiful. xo
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