The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives [Hardcover]

Manning has two core messages: 1) We are depraved people in need of rescue, and 2) God's grace is relentless in delivering that rescue. Since he first wrote "Ragamuffin Gospel", he has continued to explore these two themes from different angles. "Ruthless Trust" focused on the nature of true trust and our need to trust God. "The Signature of Jesus" focuses on what true discipleship looks like, the stamp of this loving God on the ragamuffin soul.

"The Wisdom of Tenderness" focuses on our need to "let go and let God", as John Wimber used to say. It is about living a life of letting God minister his love to us. The chapter titled "Fierce Mercy" is worth the price of the book alone. By the end of this chapter, when Manning wrote, "We're so poor that not even our poverty is our own," I felt as if I had *finally* grasped Manning's message (with my heart) to quit trying to earn God's grace and just let him give it to me.

I'm wired such that I'm trying to earn God's approval even when I think I'm not. Manning's message is such a breath of fresh air in our performance-based society. And its repetition in his various writings is a critical reminder of its importance. If we would be free, we must breathe this message frequently.

In the "The Wisdom of Tenderness" Brennan Manning once again discusses the unfathomable love of God. By discussing the tender, pursuing love of Jesus, as well as the fierce mercy of our Abba, Manning seeks to point the way to how we should live as God's people in the twenty-first century.

Manning begins by giving the lie to the all too common, overly optimistic self-evaluation modern Christians have been giving themselves. In an era where many live by legalism instead of grace and love, it has become too easy to skew the holy "stat sheet" by moving the goal posts into a more favorable position.

Manning's main argument is that the Church at large has become so self-involved and inward, that we squabble while the world around us spiritually starves to death:

"When the primacy of love is subordinated to doctrinal correctness and orthodox exegesis, cool cordiality and polite indifference masquerade as love among theologians, biblical scholars, and faculties across the land. When absolute control and rigid obedience pose as love within the family and the local faith-community, we produce trained cowards rather than Christian persons."

What Manning suggests as solution to the horrid state of things is a return to Christians living as a people of tenderness. The example and presence of Jesus and his loving Abba are to be a model and motivation for believers:

"Because of the mysterious substitution of Christ for the Christian, each encounter with a brother or sister is a real encounter with the risen Lord, an opportunity to respond creatively to the gospel and mature in the wisdom of tenderness."

As usual, Manning's writing is top notch. He is a very talented author. More importantly, Brennan has fearlessly laid bare his soul in parts of this book. Others will no doubt find great healing and motivation in this book as a result. I know I did.

I give "The Wisdom of Tenderness" my highest recommendation.

Yet, written and expressed with tenderness, compassion, not mawkishness, not soft love.

An unusual call upward to God.
An unusual revelation of what our God really is like.
A book to be read, pondered, meditated upon, reflected, and absorbed deeply.

It is a book for those who have been overfed with "Hollywood" Christianism and are now bloated with its false claims and retarded images of God and Jesus Christ.

It is a book that will warm your heart and draw you back to the flame of which you once were touched by, that of God's fiery and awesome love for you.

It is a book that will transform hearts that are ready and open for its message.

Brennan Manning fearlessly drives the stake into heartless religion, exposing its fraud and emptiness behind all its glitzy claims and glittering candy-trash.

This is a book written with courage.
A timely message for our generation.
It is not a "how-to" book emphasizing steps you have to take to experience change, but a book, that by exposing one's soul to its message without reserve, will cause a transformation.

It will shake your beliefs about a God you thought you knew.
It will rebuild a foundation of what God's love is like for you.
It will restoke, rekindle, and rebirth a fiery love for Jesus Christ.

It is not a message of Christianism and all its laws.
It is finally a message of Jesus Christ, Him and Him alone.

A must read...for all,
especially Christians.