What's So Amazing About Grace?

by Philip Yancey

In each of these uses I hear a pang of childlike delight in the undeserved.

This is the true goal of faith & grace; delight! Faith should be enjoyed, savored as it is precious & one thing that is truly unique to humanity.

The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.

H. L. Mencken described a Puritan as a person with a haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy; today, many people would apply the same caricature to evangelicals or fundamentalists.

This speaks so poignantly to the political notion of ‘the other’ that often fictitious ‘they’ created to scare or assign blame. The notion that if ‘they’ receive (insert whatever here- rights, social entitlements, employment, grace) then “I” must lose. And coupled with that the notion that “I” am so much more deserving.

Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?

This parable in slightly different forms plays out in offices everywhere every day!

As Frederick Buechner says, “Grace is the best he can wish them because grace is the best he himself ever received.”

I am caught between forgiveness and justice.”

In the study of scientific atheism, there was the idea that religion divides people. Now we see the opposite: love for God can only unite.”

When the church joined with the state, it tended to wield power rather than dispense grace.

Western Europe now pays God little heed, the United States is pushing God to the margins, and perhaps the future of God’s kingdom belongs to places like Korea, China, Africa, and Russia. The kingdom of God thrives where its subjects follow the desires of the King—does that describe the United States of America today?

It is because of the corruption of the message that ‘God’ gets pushed to the margins. When God becomes a white haired stalwart Preacher decrying women's healthcare or nodding sagely while offering thoughts & prayers after a gun violence event; the true message of faith, love & grace shown through acts of service & support are lost.

They concentrated on changing lives, not changing laws.