Brennan Manning Quotes

It always cracks me up when people try to impress God, because people don't have to impress God. He's already knocked out by you.

Know today that God approves of you. He's pleased with you. He may not always be pleased with your choices or some of the things you do, but when God looks at you, He sees His amazing creation.

So many people don't know that God loves them. They feel, 'Why would God love me? Why would He be interested in me?'

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.

You do not have to change for God to love you.

With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God.

If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me?

Define yourself radically as one beloved by God.

It doesn't matter who likes you or doesn't like you, all that matters is that God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.

For kids who are struggling, who are of faith, just reconciling yourself to the fact that God loves you, accepts you for who you are, is a big step in the healing, especially when your biological family is unaccepting of you.

Letting ourselves be loved by God is more important than loving God.

False gods - the gods of human understanding - despise sinners, but the Father of Jesus loves all, no matter what they do. But of course this is almost too incredible for us to accept.

Henri Nouwen says, "When we come to realize that ... only God saves, then we are free to serve, then we can live truly humble lives." Nouwen changed his approach from "selling pearls," or peddling the good news, to "hunting for the treasure" already present in those he was called to love - a shift from dispensing religion to dispensing grace. It makes all the difference in the world whether I view my neighbor as a potential convert or as someone whom God already loves.

No matter what I do on the baseball field, no matter how hard I try to be a good player, no matter how hard I try to be a good father or a good husband, I can never do enough. I can never be perfect in this world. But God's there to tell me that it's not what you do, it's whom you believe in and it's Him loving me.

Humility is simply believing and accepting what God says about us, and God says that we are anything but worthless.

God's love for us is not the reason for which we should love him. God's love for us is the reason for us to love ourselves.

Known to the Lord from the beginning were all your sins. Nevertheless, He still loved you.

The real reason why so few men believe in God is that they have ceased to believe that even a God can love them.

We acknowledge that being the person God made you cannot separate you from God's love.

The Ragamuffin rabble are the unsung assembly of saved sinners who are little in their own sight, conscious of their brokenness and powerlessness before God, and who cast themselves on His mercy. Startled by the extravagant love of God, they do not require success, fame, wealth, or power to validate their worth. Their spirit transcends all distinctions between the powerful and powerless, educated and illiterate, billionaires and bag ladies, high-tech geeks and low-tech nerds, males and females, the circus and the sanctuary.

You don't need to be accepted by everyone else to get reaccepted by the one who made you.

I also understood that God's love shows itself just as well in the simplest soul which puts up no resistance to His grace as it does in the loftiest soul.

I have that need in me, I want everyone to love me, but I'm embarrassed by that need, so I wanted to cover it up in my persona. I felt like I wouldn't be able to do stand-up for a career if I was needy. I didn't want to be complaining or whining onstage. I wanted to be cool and do exactly what I wanted to do. That way I would never have to change for anybody.

There is nothing you need to do to make yourself more acceptable to God. You don't have to work harder, nor do you need to change the kind of work you do. You don't have to give more money to charitable organizations. The reality is, God doesn't want you to give anyone anything if you only do it to impress God! God does not love you or find you acceptable because of anything that you do. God loves you and accepts you because you are a part of God.