The Craziness of the Gospel By Brennan Manning

The Craziness of the Gospel 

Brennan Manning

At the risk of sounding like a country preacher, allow me to raise some intimate, personal questions about your relationship with Jesus of Nazareth. Do you live each day in the blessed assurance that you have been saved by the unique grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? After falling flat on your face, are you still firmly convinced that what matters in the Christian walk is not works but grace? Are you depressive and sad because you are still striving for the perfection that comes from your own efforts and not from faith in Jesus Christ? Are you shocked and horrified when you fail? Are you really aware that you don’t have to change, grow, or be good to be loved?

Are you as certain of the triumph of good over evil as a fire burns dry wood? Though on a given day you may be more depressed than anything else, is the general direction of your life toward peace and joy? Do you feel smaller by other people’s perception of you or your own definition of yourself? Do you possess that touch of craziness to transcend doubt, fear, and self-hatred and accept that you are accepted?

If not, you probably belong to the brotherhood of the tired, beat-up, and burnt-out. You may feel like a charred log in a fireplace, totally drained of energy, and unable to light a fire in yourself. Your personal inner resources appear to have ended.

The first step toward renewal begins with accepting where you are and admitting your poverty, weakness, and emptiness to the love that is everything. Don’t try to feel anything, think anything, or do anything. With all the trying in the world you cannot make anything happen. Don’t force prayer. Simply relax in the presence of the God you try to believe in and ask for a touch of craziness.

Should you ever have the opportunity to celebrate Easter in France, you will hear one phrase sung, chanted, and recited in the churches. You will hear it exchanged as an Easter greeting as people pass on the street: “L’amour de Dieu est folie!”—The love of God is crazy. This truth reaches out to the defeated everywhere. May Jesus Christ convert us to the craziness of the gospel.

What kind of a person are you? And how do you need God’s love to meet you?

#JSalum #ASONE

Edited by Filipe S.S. Gouvea