Brennan Manning’s, “The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out.”

What would your life look like if your identity truly rested upon God’s relentless, tender, compassionate love for you? The apostle John reminds us, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…Beloved, we are God’s children now.” 1 John 3: 1-2 (ESV). What if YOU were the beloved?

We have an enduring tradition as part of our family’s Christmas: to settle down before the fireside and return to the town of snow-swept Bedford Falls as we relive Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

In 1945, the movie director, Frank Capra, was handed a script. He read just two pages and would later write, “A good man with ambition is so busy helping others that life seems to pass him by. In a moment of desperation, he wishes he had never existed. And through the eyes of a guardian angel, his wish is granted. George Bailey sees the world as if he had never been born. What an idea!”