All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.
The god who exacts the last drop of blood from his Son so that his just anger, evoked by sin, may be appeased, is not the God revealed by and in Jesus Christ. And if he is not the God of Jesus, he does not exist.
Faith means wanting God and wanting to want nothing else.
Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.
If in our hearts we really don’t believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.
When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God’s gift of grace.
The Word we study has to be the Word we pray.
The ragamuffin gospel reveals that Jesus forgives sins, including the sins of the flesh; that He is comfortable with sinners who remember how to show compassion; but that He cannot and will not have a relationship with pretenders in the Spirit.
Tragedy is that our attention centers on what people are not, rather than on what they are and who they might become.
Jesus was victorious not because he never flinched, talked back, or questioned, but having flinched, talked back, and questioned, he remained faithful.
Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.
The ragamuffin gospel says we can’t lose, because we have nothing to lose.
Without fear I can acknowledge that the authentic Christian tension is not between life and death, but between life and life.
When our inner child is not nurtured and nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable commitments and the surprises of the Spirit.
On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.
Do the truth quietly without display.
The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.
No man can adequately reach and explain a single word of God with all his words.
Anyone we come in contact with, we either offer them life, or we drain them.
I have been seized by the power of a great affection.