The
grace of
which
Philip
Yancey
writes
is the
freely
given
and
unmerited
favor
and love
of God.
This
grace
seems a
remote,
almost
sentimental
concept,
without
a place
in our
lives or
our
society.
It is a
vague,
slippery
thing to
us,
probably
because
we seem
to
experience
grace so
rarely
and have
managed
to leech
the word
of
meaning.
But
Philip
Yancey
has set
about to
rescue
grace in
his book
What's
So
Amazing
About
Grace?
This
grace is
the true
message
of
Jesus.
All
faiths
have
virtues
and
creeds
and
justice
and
truth,
but
Jesus
speaks
merely
of
receiving
the love
that God
has for
us.
Accepting
it, not
earning
it or
making
ourselves
worthy
of it.
And
frankly,
accepting
something
we have
not
earned
or are
not
worthy
of is
not an
easy
thing
for most
of us.
In
truth,
grace is
both
utterly
simple
and
utterly
confounding.
Little
by
little,
Yancey
guides
us into
a
clearer
understanding
of grace
by using
stories,
in much
the same
way
Jesus
did. We
read
stories
of both
grace
and
ungrace
at work
in
people's
lives.
Sadly,
it is
stories
of
ungrace
that are
more
prevalent
today,
the
current
culture
wars
painful
acknowledgments
of
ungrace
in our
lives as
Christians
in this
country.
Yancey
helps us
understand
that
ungrace
is that
state of
being in
which
self-righteousness
and
pride
are a
result
of
thinking
that we
have
somehow
earned
God's
approval
and may
now
stand in
judgment
in his
behalf.
Philip
Yancey
was
awarded
the Gold
Medallion
Christian
Book of
the Year
award
for this
book in
1998 by
the
Evangelical
Christian
Publishers
Association.
Readers
concurred
with
this
decision,
making
this
book an
immediate
bestseller.
Believers
and
nonbelievers
alike
should
accept
Yancey's
challenge
to
become
agents
of grace
rather
than
agents
of
vengeance
or
judgment
or
anger.
In
truth,
we are
each
starving
for
grace,
ready to
grasp it
tightly.
And it
is
through
grace
that all
other
hungers--for
justice,
for
righteousness,
for
love--are
satisfied.
Yancey
opens
his book
by
telling
us that
"grace"
is the
last
best
word,
and in
What's
So
Amazing
About
Grace?,
he
proves
that
he's
right.
--Patricia
Klein
