Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine

It doesn’t come naturallyHere’s what comes naturally: judginess. Also, fantasizing about revenge comes pretty easily. It feels really good to fantasize about revenge. Doing revenge is difficult. And isn’t nearly as satisfying as watching the villain in a Clint Eastwood or Denzel Washington movie get his comeuppance. Real vengeance is messy and deflating.Grace leads to freedom. Grace let’s God do what God does best. God doesn’t need to partner with humans when it comes to judgement and vengeance. But God loves to partner with humans in grace efforts, grace events, and grace projects. This is where the real good stuff—God stuff—gets done.I love to read Max Lucado. He’s a writer and a pastor. As a writer, he’s accessible and humble. As a pastor, he’s an encouraging, gentle teacher. He helps you see things from heaven’s point of view. That’s a rare gift in both writers and pastors."Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart—poisoned as it is with pride and pain—and replacing it with his own. Rather than tell you to change, he creates the change. Do you clean up so he can accept you? No, he accepts you and begins cleaning you up," Lucado writes.Do you know someone that doesn’t need to hear this said? What about you? Are you good with what God may think of you? Are you good with what you think of others? Are you good with what you think?Lucado’s purpose for this book is to break your natural habits of judginess, self-loathing, vengeful fantasy (although I don’t think I ever read that in this book but it is definitely the hot topic God was dealing with me about) and the bondage that comes with carrying the heavy burdens like hatred and unforgiveness, familiar though they are.Grace. God. Exchange. Rest. Coming clean. Fear. Hearts unScrooged. Chosen. Heaven. Grace. These are the topics covered in this book’s chapters. I can feel my heart speed up a little bit as I break the topics out of the book’s chapters. There’s healing I crave for my life. Lucado’s writing directly addresses it, satisfies it, and creates a greater appetite for God’s grace.I started off the year reading this book. And since then, I’ve had to find other books that connect God and Holiness and Holiness and Healing and Healing and Humility and Humility and Grace and Grace and God. This book of Lucado’s was the beginning of a much needed spiritual makeover. And I’m ready to cycle back through and re-read Lucado’s book about Grace."...if you wonder whether God can do something with the mess of your life, then grace is what you need."There is one surprising chapter in this book where pastor and writer Max Lucado is incredibly transparent. I say incredibly because it is unbelievable that a pastor would out himself the way he did about secrecy and hypocrisy without being caught red-handed. You just don’t see that. In chapter seven, Lucado makes a confession about addiction that may seem small when compared to your own unconfessed struggles (or my unconfessed struggles), but he personally demonstrates how grace is activated at a deeper level than one may think one needs.While I was reading this book, I jammed up my Twitter feed with excerpts from Lucado’s and his sources. I felt compelled to share what I was reading in real time. I thought I was doing the world a favor by blasting it out over social media.Let me tell you as a friend: read this book, friend. It’s an easy read. You could probably read the whole thing in one afternoon. But spread it out over a two-weeks and read a little bit every day. Even if you’re reading something else already, your heart will thank you. If you apply what you’re reading and let it really sink in, everybody else in your life will thank you, too.

Max Lucado has done it again. He can make the words of the Bible come alive and help you put them into your daily life. I Highly Recommend this Book

What a great study reminder that God sheds so much grace on us we need to do the same for others

I have loved Max Lucado's "sayings" and "quotes" for a long time now but had never read his books. I got this one and a few others and really love them. His writing style is great. Talkative, funny, engaging. And the truths in his books have been wonderful for me to read and get a refresher and new perspectives on. Thoroughly enjoying this book and the others.

It's another great Max Lucado book. Read it. You won't regret it.

Love, love, love this book. It helped me to understand the grace of God and is a very easy read. It has a great study guide in the back

One of the best books describing the grace of God and how we receive it.

Great book when you are dealing with accepting the Lords grace. It is a hard concept to understand since his grace is given freely for ANYTHING/EVERYTHING we have done. We have to do our part and except his grace and live by it.

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME ~ Max Lucado wins again.It is fitting right in with 2 Bible studies that I am doing right now.Max hits everything right on point and it is an easy and fun read.There are also 12 tiny 4-page chapters in the back of the book. They are a personal daily Bible study or group study. It is a short "Grace reading", followed by scripture readings and questions/comments, followed by "ASK" which are questions that make you go back into the book and re-read.Surprise! I did not know these little study chapters were here until just now, as I just finished reading the book part this evening.I will indeed be purchasing a few more of these for family members and friends. I was going to SHARE this book, but now I find that I want to mark it up with the wealth of information that is in it.Learning made easy by Max Lucado once again. That's GRACE!

Awesome book - great quality