Free Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging by Brennan Manning Page A

gut-level honesty, “Oh, yes, my Abba is very fond of me,” you would experience a serene compassion for yourself that approximates the meaning of tenderness.
    “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion [tenderness] on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you” (Isaiah 49:15, NASB ).
    Scripture suggests that the essence of the divine nature is compassion and that the heart of God is defined by tenderness . “By the tender mercy [compassion] of our God who from on high will bring the rising Sun to visit us, to give light to those who live in darkness and the shadow of death and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78-79). Richard Foster wrote, “His heart is the most sensitive and tender of all. No act goes unnoticed, no matter how insignificant or small. A cup of cold water is enough to put tears in the eyes of God. Like the proud mother who is thrilled to receive a wilted bouquet of dandelions from her child so God celebrates our feeble expressions of gratitude.” [3]
    Jesus, for “in his body lives the fullness of divinity” (Colossians 2:9), singularly understands the tenderness and compassion of the Father’s heart. Eternally begotten from the Father, He is Abba’s Child. Why did Jesus love sinners, ragamuffins, and the rabble who knew nothing of the Law? Because His Abba loved them. He did nothing on His own, but only what His Abba told Him. Through meal sharing, preaching, teaching, and healing, Jesus acted out His understanding of the Father’s indiscriminate love   —a love that causes His sun to rise on bad men as well as good, and His rain to fall on honest and dishonest men alike (Matthew 5:45).
    In these acts of love Jesus created a scandal for devout, religious Palestinian Jews.
    The absolutely unpardonable thing was not his concern for the sick, the cripples, the lepers, the possessed . . . nor even his partisanship for the poor, humble people. The real trouble was that he got involved with moral failures , with obviously irreligious and immoral people : people morally and politically suspect, so many dubious, obscure, abandoned, hopeless types existing as an eradicable evil on the fringe of every society. This was the real scandal. Did he really have to go so far? . . . What kind of naive and dangerous love is this, which does not know its limits: the frontiers between fellow countrymen and foreigners, party members and non-members, between neighbors and distant people, between honorable anddishonorable callings, between moral and immoral, good and bad people? As if dissociation were not absolutely necessary here. As if we ought not to judge in these cases. As if we could always forgive in these circumstances. [4]
    Because the shining sun and the falling rain are given both to those who love God and to those who reject God, the compassion of the Son embraces those who are still living in sin. The pharisee lurking within all of us shuns sinners. Jesus turns toward them with gracious kindness. He sustains His attention throughout their lives for the sake of their conversion, “which is always possible to the very last moment.” [5]
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    The Holy Spirit is the bond of tenderness between the Father and the Son. Thus, the indwelling Spirit bears the indelible stamp of the compassion of God, and the heart of the Spirit-filled person overflows with tenderness. “The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given us” (Romans 5:5). As partakers of the divine nature, the noblest aspiration and the most demanding task of our lives is to become like Christ. In this context, Saint Irenaeus wrote that God took on our humanness so that we might become like God. Across the centuries this has meant many different things to many different people. If God is viewed primarily as omniscient, growth in wisdom and knowledge becomes the foremost priority of human existence. If God is envisioned as all-powerful,