Ruthless Trust in the Righteousness of Christ

 From Rich Carroll:

An excerpt from Brennan Manning's book, Ruthless Trust ​:

"The ragamuffin resonates to the Pauline cry, 'I know who it is that I have put my trust in' (2 Tim 1:12).  The felt knowledge of the tenderness of Jesus that lifts us, scarred and depressed after sin, gently to himself is the very soul of ragamuffin spirituality.  After stumbling and falling, the ragamuffin does not sink into despondency and endless self-recrimination, she quickly repents, offers the broken moment to the Lord, and renews her trust in the Messiah of sinners.  She knows that Jesus is comfortable with broken people who remember to love [him].

Alert to the manipulations and machinations of pharisaical self-righteousness, ragamuffins refuse to surrender control of their lives to rules and regulations.  They see that the stale religiosity of legalists, trapped in the fatal narcissism of spiritual perfectionism, obscures the face of the God of Jesus.  They will not barter their souls for the false security of fear-filled pieties that cripple the human spirit.  The motto on the New Hampshire license plate, “Live free or die,” is the ragamuffin motto.

During the past three years of prayer, study, and soul-searching, the Holy Spirit has guided me to an inescapable conclusion: ruthless trust is the way for this ragamuffin.  If it be your way, the sign you can trust will be the slow, steady, and miraculous transformation from self-rejection to self-acceptance rooted in the acceptance of Jesus Christ.





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