I've started reading Ragamuffin Gospel (Brennan Manning) again. It's one of those books that I try to get out and read every couple of years when I start thinking that God's grace towards me is based on my performance/perfection and not His love. It's so easy to do that- because that's the way everything else in life seems to be. Yet Christianity takes a completely foreign approach on acceptance and grace. That there is nothing we can do to make God love us any more and nothing we can do to make him love us less. And it is the acceptance of that grace that changes us into who we were meant to be, day by day, until one day we will look our Saviour in the face and see that His grace was working in us even when we thought we'd never cut it, because we were never meant to make it there on our own.

Jesus did not come to save those who were already righteous, but sinners.

I love the way Manning opens:

The Ragamuffin Gospel was written with a specific audience in mind.
This book is not for the super spiritual...
It is not for the Alleluia Christians who live only on the mountaintop and have never visited the valley of desolation.
It is not for the fearless and tearless...
It is not for legalists who would rather surrender control of their souls to rules than run the risk of living in union with Jesus.
If anyone is still reading along, The Ragamuffin Gospel was written for the bedraggled, beat-up, and burnt-out.
It is for the sorely burdened who are still shifting the heavy suitcase from one hand to another.
It is for the wobbly and weak-kneed who know they don't have it all together and are too proud to accept the handout of amazing grace.
It is for the inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker.
It is for the poor, weak, sinful men and women with hereditary faults and limited talents.
It is for earthen vessels who shuffle along on feet of clay.
It is for the bent and bruised who feel that their lives are a grave disappointment to God.
It is for smart people who know they are stupid and honest disciples who admit they are scalawags.
The Ragamuffin Gospel is a book I wrote for myself and anyone who has grown weary and discouraged along the Way.