The Ragamuffin Gospel - page 52.
Today at 8:58am Edit Note Delete

Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter when he sets the child on his knee. The child is unself-conscious, incapable of pretense. I am reminded of the night little John Dyer, three years old, knocked on our door flanked by his parents. I looked down and said "Hi, John, I am delighted to ese you." He looked neither to the right nor the left. His face was set like flint. He narrowed his eyes with the apocalyptic glint of an aimed gun. "Where are the cookies?", he demaned. The kingdom belongs to people who aren't trying to look good or impresss anybody, even themselves. They are not plotting on how they can call attention to themselves, worrying about how their actions will be interpreted or wondering if they will get gold stars for their behavior. Twenty centuries later Jesus speaks poitedly to the preening ascetic trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, to those of us caught up in the boasting of our victories in the vineyard, to those of us fretting and flapping about our human weakness and character defects. The child doesn't have to struggle to get himself in a good position for having a relationship with God; he doesn't have to craft ingenious ways of explaining his position to Jesus; he doesn't have to create a pretty face for himself; he doesn't have to achieve any state of spiritual feeling or intellectual understanding. All he has to do is happily accept the cookies: the gift of the kingdom

Brennan Manning on God

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQi_IDV2bgM

"Unlike Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame, we need not hide all that is ugly and repulsive in us. Jesus comes not for the super-spiritual but for the wobbly and the weak-kneed who know they don’t have it all together, and who are not too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.” - The Raggamuffin Gospel

Happy Birthday Melanie!!!

Shout out to my big sis' Melanie today! Hoping she has a wonderful, spectacular, superdiduperdy day!!! I love you more than you could ever know!

That's My Girl's!

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. A

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. People, it can't be any simpler than that!

There is a bit of addict in all of us. At the core, the battle is the same, "What competes with Christ for our affections?" What do you worship? Who do you worship? The battle is for the heart. God wants worshippers wholly devoted to Him. Who or what controls you, compels you? Shopping, food, smoking, drugs, alcohol, need for approval, staying busy, etc. - Who or what controls you?

Pictures from the Weekend