What's So Amazing About Grace?

There is no word quite as beautiful as grace.

There are some words we hear over and over and after some time the power of the word starts to fade and the true meaning of it is lost in translation. But renowned writer Philip Yancey has truly reclaimed the beauty of grace through his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? He breathes fresh air into our “last best word” so we may understand it and declare it through our lives.

Although grace is hard to defi ne, Yancey produces a beautiful and thought-provoking response. “Grace means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more and nothing I can do to make God love me less. . . . Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infi nite God can possibly love.” He writes a contemplative yet direct narrative to reveal an amazing God of second chances, infi nite mercy and extravagant love.

Yancey digs deeper to look at “ungrace,” the state of the church and its role in forming the negative connotations around the word grace . Legalism represents the greatest threat to grace: “You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it.” Yancey takes the step further and challenges us to show grace instead of becoming entangled in the dangers of legalism and ungrace. He urges us to “break the cycle of ungrace,” to forgive, to show mercy.

Yancey writes a powerful and impassioned questioning into what really is so amazing about grace. His conversational writing style fl ows easily between each idea, connecting them to provide a reply to his title. What’s So Amazing About Grace? is an empowering book, punctuated with many stories to reinforce and demonstrate the true beauty of grace that was best displayed by Jesus. It c h a l l e n g e s us to become living examples of grace.

On a scale of one to 10, this book rates 11.

What’s So Amazing About Grace? is a sharp, insightful and, daring to use the cliché, even life-changing book that will make us again realise how truly amazing our God of grace is.

What’s So Amazing About Grace? Philip Yancey Zondervan Publishing House, 1997 282 pages