True Spirituality - Brennan Manning

When Jesus asked Peter on the Tiberian seashore, "Simon, son of John, do you love Me?" (John 21)
He added nothing else; what He said was enough.

Do you love Me? Can you allow My love to touch you in your weakness, set you free and empower you there?

Thereafter, the only power Peter had was Jesus' love for him.

He told and re-told the story of his own unfaithfulness and how Jesus touched him.

When he proclaimed the gospel of grace, he preached from his weakness the power of God.

That is what converted the Roman world and what will convert us, and the people around us, if they see that the love of Christ has touched us.

The confessing church of American ragamuffins needs to join Magdalene and Peter in witnessing that Christianity is not primarily a moral code, but a grace-laden mystery; it is not essentially a philosophy of love, but a love affair; it is not keeping rules with clenched fists, but receiving a gift with open hands.

Several years ago, the renowned evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer wrote, "True spirituality consists in living moment to moment by the grace of Jesus Christ."

This book lays no claim to originality; it is simply a commentary on Schaeffer's statement.

As C. S. Lewis was fond of saying, people need more to be reminded than to be instructed.

     -- From The Ragamuffin Gospel,
              by Brennan Manning, Chapter 11.