Amazing Grace

I am currently reading What's So Amazing About Grace? and it has shown me a most sobering reality, and that is how we live in a world of ungrace -- rather than awarding people for being on time, we punish the late, and when we get tests back the incorrect answers are highlighted rather than the correct. It's a dog-eat-dog-world, the early bird gets the worm, and second place is the first loser.

Thing is, what's so great about crossing the finish-line first? you've pushed and shoved your way to the front only to find no one waiting for you at the end. I myself would rather finish somewhere in the middle, there are people there waiting for you when you cross the line, and then you get to be at the line when those behind you cross. what could be better than at the end of a long hard race to be surrounded by the people you are running that crazy race with?

Our world, Yancey says, starves for grace.

so, what's so amazing about grace... well the more i learn about it and from it, the more i am humbled by God's ucanny ability to comfort and love.

Anyway, here is an exerpt from the book:

[At a seminar, Manning referred to Jesus' closest friend on earth, the disciple named John, identified in the Gospels as 'the one Jesus loved.' Manning said, "If John were to be asked, 'What is your primary identity in life?' he would not reply, 'I am a desciple, an apostle, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels,' but rather, 'I am the one Jesus loves.' "

What would it mean, I ask myself, if I too came to the place where I saw my primary, identity in life as "the one Jesus loves"? How differently would I view myself at the end of the day? How would my life change if I truly believed the Bible's astounding words about God's love for me?] -philip yancey

the amazing part about grace is that even in a world of ungrace-- grace, His Grace, still wins.