Faith = Trusting God

The difference between faith as "belief in something that may or may not exist" and faith as "trusting in God" is enormous. The first is a matter of the head, the second a matter of the heart. The first can leave us unchanged; the second intrinsically brings change.

~ Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

(Colorado Springs: Multnomah Publishers, 1990, 2000, 2005), 27.

(Manning's endnote references Marcus S. Borg,

Jesus, A New Vision: Spirit, Culture,

and the Life of Discipleship

(New York: Harper & Rowe, 1987), 35.

Love with no agenda

As the book of James says, “God shows no favoritism.” So we don’t either.

Oftentimes the Christian community has sent the message that we love people and build relationships in order to convert them to the Christian faith. So there is an agenda. And when there is an agenda, it isn’t really love, is it? It’s something else. We have to rediscover love, period. Love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do. We have to surrender our agendas. Because some people aren’t going to become Christians like us no matter how hard we push. They just aren’t. And at some point we have to commit them to God, trusting that God loves them more than we ever could.

~ Rob Bell

Velvet Elvis, p. 167

Napoleon on Christ

"I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this very hour millions of men would die for Him."

~ attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

source: Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What,

© 2004 Donald Miller, p. 138.