In the Grip of Grace...

This truly is an amzing book and I'm sure you'll love it. I'll write some of the really awsome passages, and I hope this will touch your hearts as much as it touched mine. You can get this book at CLC (in Montreal) or any other christian book stores across the world. It costs less than 10$ and sooo easy to read! If you read this book, write me an email, cuz I'd like to share your ideas on this book. So enjoy the book and get back to me, ok?

"Can anything seperate us from the Love Christ has for us? This is what we want to know. Does God really love us forever? Not just on Easter Sunday when our shoes are shined and our hair fixed. We want to know (deep within, don't we really want to know?) how does God feel about me when I'm a jerk? When I snap at anything that moves; when my thoughts are gutter-level; when my toungus is sharp enough to slice a rock. How does he feel about me then?That's the question.
Did I drift too far?
Wait too long?
Slip too much?
Did I out-sin the love of God? The answer is found in one of life's sweetest word
Grace
Author Max Lucado invites you to walk the mountain peaks of God's mercy. In the Grip of Grace will remind you that the God who first made you is strong enough to sustain you...."

The loss of mystery has led to the loss of majesty.
The more we know, the less we believe.
No wonder there is no wonder.
We think we've figured it all out.
Strange don't you think?
Knowledge of the working shouldn't negate wonder.
Knowledge should stir wonder.
Who has more reason to worship than the astronomer who has seen the stars?
Than a surgeon who has held a heart?
Than the oceanographer who has pondered the depths?

. . .

We are without excuse because God has revealed himself to us through his creation. The Psalmist wrote, "The heavens tell the Glory of God and the skies announce what his hands have made. Day after day they tell their story; night after night they tell it again. They have no speech or words; they have no voice to be heard. But their message goes through all the world; their words go everywhere on earth" (Ps.19:1-4) Every star is an anouncement. Each leaf a reminder, The glaciers are megaphones, the seasons are chapters. the clouds are banners. Nature is a song of many parts but one theme and one verse : God is.

...

Ponder the achievement of God.
He doesn't condone our sin, nor does he compromise his standards.
He doesn't ignore our rebellion, nor does he relax his demands.
Rather than dismiss our sin, he assumes our sin and, incredibly, sentences himself.
God's holiness is honored.
Our sin is punished. . . and we are redeemed.
God does what we cannot do so we can be what we dare not dream :
Perfect before God!

. . .

The human race is dead, and there's a bad smell. We have been dead and buried a long time. We don't need someone to fix us up; we need someone to raise us up. In the muck and mire we call life, there's death and we have bee in it so long we've grouwn accustomed to the stink. But Christ hasn't. And Christ can't stand the thought of his kids rotting in the cemetery. So He comes and calls us out.

. . .

Get it straight : someone who sees grace as permission to sin has missed grace entirely![...] In fact, if a person uses God's mercy as liberty to sin, one might wonder whether the person ever knew God's mercy at all.

. . .

We must not see Grace as a Provision made after the law had failed. Grace was offered before the law was reavealed. [...] Please understand, God doesn't want us to sin. He didn't give us Grace so we would sin. But he knows his children. "He made their hearts and understands everything they do" (Ps.33:15). "he knows how we are made"(Ps.103:14). And he knew that we would someday need Grace.

. . .

Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say,"it's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never have a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's prmomise cautiously asking skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God. That's why it is said, "Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right." (Rom.4:18-21)

. . .

"All who stand before others and say they believe in me, I will say before my father in heaven that they belong to me." (Matt.10:32) Because we are friends of His Son, we have entrance to his throne.

. . .

When we wer unable to help ourselves, at the moment of our need, Christ died for us, although we were living aginst God.

. . .

Family therapist Paul Faulkner tells of the man who set out to adopt a troubled teenage girl. One would question the father's logic. The girl was destructive, disobedient and dishonest. One day she came home from school and ransacked the house looking for money. By the time he arrived, she was gone and the house was in shamble. Upon hearing of her action, friends urged him to finalize the adoption. "Let her go," they said. "After all, she's not really your daughter." His response was simply, "Yes, I know. But I told her she was." God, too, has made a covenant to adopt his people. His covenant is not invalidated by our rebeliion. It's one thing to love us when we are strong, obedient and willing. But when we ransack his house and steal what is his? This is THE test of love. And God passes the test. "God shows his great love for us in this way : Christ died for us while we were still sinners."

. . .

Everything comes from him;
Everything comes through him;
Everythig ends up in him.

. . .

Baptism is a vow of the believers to follow Christ. Just as a wedding celebrates the fusion of two hearts, baptism celebrates the union of sinner with Savior.
That plunge beneath the running water was ike death; the moment's pause while they swept overhead was like burial; the standing erect once more in the air and sunlight was a species of resurrection.

. . .

Test yourself with this question. What if God's only gift to you were his grace to save you? Would you be content? You beg him to save the life of your child. You plead with him to keep your business afloat. You implore him to remove the cancer from your body. What if his answer is, "My grace is enough." Would you be content?

(The author's oldest daughter fell into the swimming pool and almost died, but thanx to his friend who pulled her out of the water, she lived.)
[The next morning,] I made a special effort to record my gratitude in my journal. I told God how wonderful he was for saving her. As clearly as if God himself was speaking, this question came to mind :
Would I be less wonderful had I let her drown? Would I be any less a good God for calling her home? Would I still be receiving your praise this morning had I not saved her?
Is God still a good God if he says no?