brennan manning - love based on nothing

i open the book my wife has on a table where she spends time in devotion and there is brennan manning and a quote:

"God's love is based on nothing, and the fact that it is based on nothing makes us secure. Were it based on anything we do, and that 'anything' were to collapse, then God's love would crumble as well. But with the God of Jesus no such thing can possibly happen.

People who realize this can live freely and to the fullest.

Remember Atlas, who carries the whole world? We have Christian Atlases who mistakenly carry the burden of trying to deserve God's love. Even the mere watching of this lifestyle is depressing.

I'd like to say to Atlases: 'Put that globe down and dance on it. That's why God made it.' And to these weary Christian Atlases: 'Lay down your load and build your life on God's love.'

We don't have to earn this love; neither do we have to support it. It is a free gift. Jesus calls out: 'Come to me, all you Atlases who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you.'

i love the dancing part...i love the thought of Jesus refreshing us...i have always loved the mission brennan is on. i remember hearing him speak at a christian college and enjoying his ministry and then walking into the parking lot to leave and all the cars were covered with flyers. the flyers were countering his focus and suggested that brennan was telling lies and half truths.

i cannot figure out how anyone could consider a message of grace as a lie and a half truth. it is a vital truth intended to be a reality at a very fundamental level of experience. it was as if it was assumed that a message about love and grace would undermine 'real' discipleship...

are we not all grateful for those in charge of real discipleship...are we not all grateful for the people who have felt responsible for determining who is an insider and who is an outsider...are we not all grateful for the experts who know exactly what to believe and what the rest of us are supposed to be doing???

why wouldn't gratitude for the grace be a good motivater to join into everything it means to be in the kingdom...why wouldn't love prompt me in a very pure way to seize every moment...why wouldn't the gospel oozing with so much unconditional reality make all the difference in our lives???!!!

i think i would rather dance with brennan and others in a parking lot than be caught passively, and under the cover of the dark attaching flyers to cars.

"We played the flute for you, and you did not dance" (Jesus)