Challenging words from Brennan Manning…
The signature of Jesus, the Cross, is the ultimate expression of God’s love for the world. The church is the church of the crucified, risen Christ only when it is stamped with his signature; only when it faces outward and moves with him along the way of the Cross.
Fidelity to the Word will take us along the path of downward mobility in the midst of an upwardly mobile world. We will find ourselves not on the path to power but on the path to powerlessness; not on the road to success but on the road to servanthood; not on the broad road of praise and popularity but on the narrow road of ridicule and rejection.
To be a Christian is to be like Christ. Somehow we must lose our life in order to find it. Christianity preaches not only a crucified God, but also crucified men and women. There is no discipleship without the Cross. I am not a follow of Jesus if I live with him only in Bethlehem and Nazareth and not in Gethsemane and on Calvary, too.
-Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus (p. 10-11)
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