Finding Grace – Review of “Stunned By Grace”
STUNNED BY GRACE, makes finding grace effortless! A vital book for the shelf of every believer. Reread it often, share and discuss it with others. It has proven to be such a powerful tool alongside my bible.
My story…
I reached out to a long time friend and pastor/missionary son I’ve known for 15 years. He asked me how I was doing and I responded: “I’m reigning in life here.” To which his reply was, “that actually sounds really amazing.” My response came from a collective work of everything I’ve been learning, but specifically from Stunned By Grace. A four part book on Romans 5:17, part four of which I continue to read over and over — ‘Reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
My thoughts…
What absolute victory we have. Have! It’s really sad how conditioned we are, growing up in church, to believing a victory we have that’s in the future. That’s hogwash. We have everything we need for life and Godliness, 2 Peter 1:3. Where does it come from? His divine power. Granted to us when? At the moment we received Him. It’s not some far off thing to long for, it’s now!
One of the number one questions we (as pastors) have asked the last 20 years has always been something along the line of, ‘why does no one stay?’ Speaking mostly of pastors and staff, but also of volunteers and congregants. I now have the answer. They came into our church, got saved or ‘right with God,’ surrendered to serve either full time or volunteer… all amazing things to see! They didn’t stay, though, because they where not stunned by grace.
We challenge men, but fail to equip men, and the end result is we frustrate men. They are not staying because we have not equipped them. We are stuck on section one of the book, “If by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one.” Bad news. ‘You’re a sinner. God has done this for you, so now live for Him by these means and say no to sin and yes to God.’ Sounds good, but it’s lifeless. We have mastered the art of the challenge to get people to want and need to get back to church, in order to stay clean and focused and on target.
What about section two? “The gift of righteousness.” Well, that’s in the future right? We’ve accepted the gift, so we are positionally righteous with God when Jesus returns. True. But MUCH MORE (Romans 5), we are positionally righteous now! Not only that but section three goes on with Romans 5:17—grace is abundant! This answers the question I’ve been trying to ask for 20 years while in ministry, ‘Where is the life?’ He offers abundant life (John 10:10), where is it? We already have it. We just don’t know this yet. Truth only transforms when it is trusted. Sadly, we’ve preached truth (great), but we’ve not equipped people to trust God’s truth.
How was Jesus able to live the way He did? Not because He was God. That’s not a good answer for us who are called to live the same radical life He did. God did not call us to something impossible for us to live, yet this is what we preach week after week. No wonder there is so much frustration in the church! Jesus was and always will be God, but He humbled Himself to demonstrate how we are to live. Not by imitating His behavior, but to emulate His method. John 6:57 “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father.’ We too can say, ‘I live from the Father,’ or, ‘ I live out of the Father.’ We draw what we need from Him because we are in perfect union with Him because of ‘Christ in me, the hope of glory.’
For this resource and other book suggestions check out my RESOURCE page.
