We are beginning our second week on Christian Book Club in our August book of the month, “What’s So Amazing About Grace” by Phillip Yancey. This week we will be reading Chapters 6-10. I wanted to share some of the comments from our first weeks reading.
Comments by Wendy on the first five chapters.
There are a few books (besides the Bible of course) that I believe all Christians should read. This would be one of those books. Philip Yancey is one of my favorite authors and his honesty is at times startling but very much needed in this world today.
Where else can the world go to find grace? Gordon MacDonald’s question on page 15 hit us right where we live. Grace is what we need and just aren’t finding. The world cares about itself period.
The Parable of Grace: A gift that costs everything for the giver and nothing for the recipient. (page 25)
Do we realize that this is what we have been given? We think we have to work for it or give something in exchange for the grace we have been given by Jesus. And I for one just can’t grasp the enormity of what Jesus did for me.
I just loved how a conference was held to debate what belief was unique to Christianity. CS Lewis responds “oh, that’s easy, it’s grace”. Isn’t it the simplest things that always seem to dumbfound us?
Page 53 “Grace is shockingly personal”. Do you have a problem with accepting that God personally cares for you? To realize that God who created ALL and controls ALL cares about little ole me is mind-blowing. There are days when I don’t even care about me so how could God? I have often told people that I believe if I was the ONLY lost person ever Jesus would have still died to save only me. I do believe this but I can’t really wrap my mind around it.
Chapter 5 is my favorite out of part 1. God’s thoughts and ways being higher than mine is pretty much how I leave things in my life. I quote this often (my husband says it is my “I have no idea but that is how God rolls” scripture verse…yep I would agree with that statement. Yancey also delves into Hosea (which is my favorite book of the Bible). God loves us but must judge our behavior. To not do so would just allow us to behave as we wished (this is what society has become…do as we want with no consequence). Then we learn that God decides NOT to give us what we deserve (have you ever received that grace from anyone in your life? did you thank them? do you thank God?).
Page 66 “I marvel at a God who allows himself to endure such humiliation only to come back for more.”
It hurts to realize that I can humiliate God. By claiming to be His and live under His control, when I stray from Him people see my behavior as a reflection of God (not Wendy). And in spite of that He comes back and picks me up and dusts me off.
And once again on page 67 we have a simple yet profound truth. “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so”. We should all sing this daily!
I read Rich Mullins:An arrow pointing to Heaven years ago and in the book there was a statement: You cannot do anything to make God love you more nor can you do anything to make Him love you less. On page 70 this statement showed back up and it is correlated with grace. What an amazing grace it is!!!!
Comments by Gwen on the first five chapters.
This book is fantastic. I love how Yancy explains Grace through the parables of the bible.
I liked where he says “God yearns to see in people something of his own image reflected”. Something. Anything. And that God doesn’t give up on us over time as we try to become more like him but falling short of our design potential.
I liked “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more” and ‘Grace is the best he can wish them because grace is the best he himself ever received’.
I really do thing the church as a whole doesn’t do a good job of showing grace. Its been my experience in my own life that finding fault, being judgmental, seeing and focusing on a sin and the sinner is easier than ackowleging a sin or situation and then offering Grace to someone unconditionally. The gift of wiping the slate clean time and time again. Like, how do we offer GRace to the child abuser? Maybe God can but can I? I don’t know.
“Grace is free only because the giver himself has borne the cost.”
“When the servent erred, the King was punished.” This concept stops me dead in my tracks. No – dont punish my King because of my actions/sin! STOP!
“God dispenses Gifts, not wages.” Thank goodness for that because I have earned so little wages, I would surely starve to death. I am so thankful for this also because there are so many people in my life that I love that are not saved. I pray they discover Gods Love and purpose for their lives and I don’t care if its one second before they enter heaven as long as they get to be with Jesus.
Why is it so hard for us to show Grace to people – not just Christian people. The author of Starving Jesus, a book I just read, is a pastor who focuses his ministry on offering Jesus to people who partake of porn. He gets a lot ‘hate’ mail (hate is a strong word, but you know what I mean) mostly from Christians that do not appreciate his attempts to reach ‘those’ people.
Reaching out to HIV orphans and loving the people in Africa and showing them Grace was not all that popular among Christians until recently. Why was the US thinking of building a wall between us and Mexico to keep people out? Was that Grace? Is that how we show Grace to aliens?
Page 42, Yancy says in the last line, ” I yearn for the Church to become a nurishing culture of that Grace.” Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Rick Warren talks about us being an army of Christians sitting in churches all over the world. What if we were mobilized by Grace. What if all we did was show Grace to the world? Imagine what we could accomplish. Imagine how our image would change.
I am really enjoying this book. Thank you for putting on the list.
Thank you for your comments. I am enjoying the book and particularly the stories highlighting grace. Keep reading and keep commenting! Or, if you can’t, just receive some grace!
