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

Aristotle said I am a rational animal; I say I am an angel with an incredible capacity for beer.

All that is good is ours not by right but by the sheer bounty of a gracious God.

He knew that following Him was as unsentimental as duty, as demanding as love.

The next time you preach about My love with such obnoxious familiarity, I may come and blow your whole prayer meeting apart.

There we are - the multitude who so wanted to be faithful, who at times got defeated, soiled by life, and bested by trials, wearing the bloodied garments of life’s tribulations, but through it all clung to faith.

We have the power to believe where others deny, to hope where others despair, to love where others hurt.

We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly.

““The story goes that a public sinner was excommunicated and forbidden entry to the church. He took his woes to God. ‘They won’t let me in, Lord, because I am a sinner.’ ‘What are you complaining about?’ said God. ‘They won’t let Me in either.””

The gospel declares that no matter how dutiful or prayerful we are, we can’t save ourselves. What Jesus did was sufficient.

To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark.

When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Jesus Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change.

The gospel of grace nullifies our adulation of televangelists, charismatic superstars, and local church heroes.

In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.

The ragamuffin who sees his life as a voyage of discovery and runs the risk of failure has a better feel for faithfulness than the timid man who hides behind the law and never finds out who he is at all.

While there is much we may have earned--our degree and our salary, our home and garden, a Miller Lite and a good night’s sleep--all this is possible only because we have been given so much: life itself, eyes to see and hands to touch, a mind to shape ideas, and a heart to beat with love.

I have been seized by the power of a great affection.

The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.

Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted.

Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace.

My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes.

I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am trusting and suspicious. I am honest and I still play games.

When Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy burdened,” He assumed we would grow weary, discouraged, and disheartened along the way.

How I treat a brother or sister from day to day, how I react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how I respond to interruptions from people I dislike, how I deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life than the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.