Saturday, November 17, 2012

Book Review: Grace Transforming

Grace Transforming: Phil Ryken. 2012. Crossway. 120 pages.

I enjoyed this little book on grace. The book has eight chapters highlighting different aspects of grace. These chapters are: Grace's Humbling Necessity, Grace's Costly Provision, Grace's Justifying Righteousness, Grace's Sanctifying Power, Grace's Clarifying Perspective, Grace's Perpetual Abundance, Grace's Precious Testimony, and Grace's Endless Kindness. Together these eight chapters provide a big picture look at God's amazing grace, and how grace changes and transforms individual believers.

I appreciate this book. I liked the biblical focus, the use of Scriptures. I liked how reader-friendly it was. It's an accessible book, you don't have to be a serious student or theologian to understand the concepts discussed in this one. And since the focus is on grace, the gospel is central to this one. I think believers can always use more reminders of the gospel! The book focuses on how grace effects us here and now, but it also spends some time on future grace revealing how grace will continue to bless us in heaven.

Grace Transforming may not be the most exhaustive work on the subject of grace, but, it is a nice little book that challenges and encourages.

Favorite quotes:
Grace is our present need as well as our past experience. (14)
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wisely wrote, "If my sinfulness appears to me to be in any way smaller or less detestable in comparison with the sins of others, I am still not recognizing my sinfulness at all." (19)
This is a good prayer for anyone to pray: "God, be mercy-seated to me, the sinner." (21)
By shedding his blood, Jesus Christ became the atoning sacrifice for my sins. His death is my substitute; his cross is my mercy seat; and the blood that he sprinkled on it is my salvation. To say that Jesus died for sinners is to say that his sacrifice accomplished what the blood on the mercy seat accomplished... Our mercy seat is the cross of Jesus Christ. (21-22)


© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible

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