The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out - Hardcover

Manning, Brennan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1601428685 ISBN 13: 9781601428684

Publisher: Multnomah, 2015

Synopsis

 
“This is a book I wrote for myself and anyone who has grown
weary and discouraged along the Way.”
—Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel[P1] 
 
 
Many of us believe in grace, yet we live as if we still have to earn God’s love. We picture God hanging His head in disappointment, tallying our successes and failures on a score sheet. We assume we have to do more, or be a different person, for God to be pleased with us.
 
 
Brennan Manning shows us a different, truer image of our relationship with God: We come to God as ragamuffins. Bedraggled, dirty, exhausted. But as we sit at God’s feet, He smiles upon us. He embraces us. He treats us not as failures but as the chosen objects of His love.
 
In this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Manning’s classic meditation on grace, Manning reminds us that we don’t need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make ourselves presentable to God. We can recognize our poverty and powerlessness as what bring us closer to a God whose love embraces us no matter what.
 
“Brennan does a masterful job of blowing the dust off of shop-worn theology and allowing God’s grace to do what only God’s grace can do—amaze.”
—Max Lucado, pastor and bestselling author
 
“This is a zestful and accurate portrayal that tells us unmistakably that the gospel is good, dazzlingly good.”
—Eugene Peterson, translator of The Message

 
“This book is for the bent and the bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God.”
—Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel
 
The Bible tells us that by grace we are saved. So why does our spirituality often start with ourselves, not with God? Why are we likely to believe in grace in theory but deny it in practice?
 
In The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning explores the true meaning of the word grace in all its power. When we beat ourselves up over who we are or what we’ve done, we pull away from God. When we acknowledge that it is only grace that can save us, we draw near to a God who delights in who He created us to be.
 
The Ragamuffin Gospel has changed thousands of lives since it was first published twenty-five years ago. In this anniversary edition, we find the timeless wisdom of a man who came to God needy and desperate again and again and found a peace that defined his life, his relationships, and his career.
 
You are not a disappointment to God. God does not “put up” with you. He celebrates you. God not only loves you, He likes you.. This is the joy of the gospel.

About this title

Review:

Brennan Manning wrote The Ragamuffin Gospel "for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out," the marginalized folks to whom Jesus ministered: the children, the ill, the tax collectors, the women. In other words, the ragamuffins. Manning understands better than most that behind our facades of order and self-assurance are inadequacies that can find healing only in Jesus. While the powerful and religious elite challenged him, Jesus embraced and healed and fed the needs of the ragamuffins. Jesus delivered love, healing, and, most of all, grace.

Grace is defined as "the freely given and unmerited favor and love of God." But, as Manning points out, we have "twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper." In reality, God offers us grace immeasurable. Brennan Manning gently encourages us to embrace that grace in the face of our greatest needs. And Manning certainly knows whereof he speaks, having taken a journey from priesthood and academic achievement through a collapse into alcoholism. Manning came face to face with his need, finally abandoning himself to grace. And he invites us now to join him in a life of grace.

Manning is without doubt one of the most eloquent writers on the subject of grace because he openly shares his own pain and struggle to help readers deal with failure and inadequacy. And he sweetly challenges them to do the same. --Patricia Klein

About the Author:

Brennan Manning was a Korean War veteran and former Franciscan priest who became the bestselling author of more than twenty books, including The Ragamuffin Gospel, Abba’s Child, The Parable of Willie Juan, and Ruthless Trust. His final book was his memoir, All Is Grace. Prior to his death in 2013, Manning traveled widely, sharing the good news of God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ.

About this edition

• Publisher: Multnomah
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1601428685
• ISBN 13: 9781601428684
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256