This is a fantastic book! I read it while attending a legalistic church, and it really opened my eyes to the difference between a rules (The Law) oriented church, and a love, acceptance, and forgiveness (Grace) oriented church. I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone struggling with law vs grace within the Christian church!

Convicting and powerful

A great book about the dangers of legalism and narcissism in the church and in each of us. Solution is leaning on the promise of freedom by grace through faith. Easy to read but difficult to trust and apply. Encouraging to have a book that explains grace vs law.

This book gave me so much comfort, and genuine truth in how we live our lives as Christians. It provided a much needed new perspective on all things grace, and has helped me grow in my faith. I think everyone should read this at least once in their life, Christian or not. I so appreciated how it points out the flaws in legalism and how most churches these days raise Christians to be. Fabulous writing from a brilliant author.

A truly amazing book on grace; liberation from religious oppression; and on being with Spirit - God!

Some excellent insight on Grace. Listened to his radio show for years and like his calm, balanced approach. This continues in this book but sometimes I feel he stops short of addressing certain issues.

I enjoyed this book sooooo much I went and bought myself a copy! As noted in What's so amazing about Grace review, I am utterly obsessed with grace, so yeah, anything I have to say is biased. But lets face it, it's worth being obsessed by.

Chuck Swindoll's best! Gleaned gems on God's grace. Swindoll beautifully shows, not only how to receive His grace, but also to extend it to others. I believe the book would revolutionize every reader's life!

I needed to hear what this book said so much. Grace is freely given by God through Jesus Christ!

Was given this book upon my ordination, fall of 1990. I remember it as a refreshing reminder of the life of grace that we have in Christ Jesus.

This is the latest book I've read from my collection of books on grace:

Lee Strobel's "The Case for Grace"
Max Lucado's "Grace: More than We Deserve, Better than We Can Imagine"
John Piper's "Future Grace"
Charles Spurgeon's "Grace: God's Unmerited Favor"

Each has been different, according to each author's style; each is well worth reading.

"The Grace Awakening" touched me a few times, with the story of Mephibosheth and fear when I was facing something unnerving. The timing of reading that felt like a gift from God Himself.

I also had to mull over Swindoll's quote, "With a commitment to excellence comes an attitude of intolerance." There are parts of my life in which I strive for excellence, and I need to watch myself not to put down others who don't, even if I do it just internally. I had not really correlated striving for excellence with frustration of others before. It bears watching.

"But let it be understood that God will not bless what springs from pride."

I liked the chapter, although it was not written for me, "Are you really a minister of grace?", but it can apply to various ministries where we volunteer, too. "Every project you undertake can be accomplished your way or God's way. The energy source of human strength is impressive and logical and effective... A ministry built by the energy of the flesh looks just like a ministry built by the energy of the Spirit... But internally, spiritually, down deep in the level of motive, you know in your heart God didn't do it; you did it! There is no glory vertically. And equally tragic, there is no grace horizontally."

"Restrain yourself from might and power if you are a minister [or, I would add, if you volunteer in ministry.] Deliberately give the Spirit time and room. Consciously hold yourself back from clever ingenuity."

"Anything that does not result in God's getting the glory ought to be enough to restrain our own might and power so His Spirit can do the job, which includes moving the obstacles."

The first part of the book, however, did not seem to be clear to me. He did not distinguish clearly from trying to live in freedom from man's rules, while still seeing the goodness and guidance of God's own rules. Yes, we no longer strive to keep the law for salvation, but we realize that God knew what He was talking about when He set them up, as far as what's best for an individual and for a society.

It gets a little further complicated than that, however, because some of the Old Testament sacrificial rules we no longer follow because Jesus fulfilled them, and the civil law we no longer follow because we have our own government, but the moral law ... that, I am convinced, we should still follow as a picture of God's heart for us, without trying to earn heaven.

I think of Ezekiel 36:27, "And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them."

His Spirit leads us into following His statutes, not leading us away from them. I would paraphrase this, perhaps too loosely, as God's Spirit within us makes us want to do the right thing, and that will be walking in His statutes. Many Christians, I think, want to do the right thing even when they wrestle with the rules. So they can identify with God's Spirit within them giving them the desire to do the right thing.

Swindoll took a great deal of time talking about trying to live against legalists' additional, unnecessary rules, but I think people today are more likely to flaunt all rules, both God's and society's, without bothering to stop and think through and distinguish them.

Having said that, I do think that some Christian places could have more grace. I am always puzzled what to do with them. Swindoll would have us break the unnecessary rules.

I loved what Swindoll said about having balance, which he calls one of his favorite words. That is neither subcoming to legalism nor giving way to license to sin. "When asked how they could justify such irresponsible behavior, almost without exception they refer to grace, as though it is the God-given, pervasive covering for whatever they please."

"Cheap grace justifies the sin rather than the sinner. True grace, on the other hand, justifies the sinner, not the sin."

I grew up in a denomination that many complain of as legalistic, but I never, for the most part, saw that. I think that was in part, because our parents did not hold us to the extra rules, and did not pretend to hold to them. They were not hypocritical.

My dad just savored the good, Biblical teaching. (Savored does seem the appropriate word there for his response.) But he did not care about dancing and the rest. If anyone asked, he was always willing to explain his point of view, but he never let the crowd - including the Christian crowd - determine what that was. He wanted to get his viewpoints directly from scripture itself. But he did not get worked up over what others' did, and he seemed so calm and so logical in his thinking that others tended to respect him.

Swindoll wrote, "Those who seek to please God only are invincible from within. Not only that, but when we stop trying to please people, we are also unintimidated from without."

That would describe my dad.

The same was true about encouraging his daughters' careers. He seemed to think we were capable of doing any legitimate career we chose, and supported us in that - even if it intimidated others. But that, of course, wasn't the point. We didn't choose them in order to intimidate others.

I am thinking of later in my life in particular of a Christian school. There were times when I'd be up all night with the baby, and barely get our kindergartener to school on time, only to have her written up because she wasn't wearing a belt I'd forgotten. It seemed so trivial and unnecessary, considering all the rest of the struggle.

And when the kids were older, and their peers in public schools were dying in suicide or fighting terrible emotional illnesses - that we, as a society were losing kids - that our school seemed to be focusing on whether or not kids wore collars as a part of their shirt, rather than on the fact that kids were dying and that all were welcome to try our school.

I understand the school's point of view, that there is training to obey rules, to obey leadership, so that they will obey governmental rules, obey police officers, etc. But during times of crisis, you let up on rules a little, to allow people to heal. It seemed like the school did not do that during our time of national childhood crisis, and it gave new students to our school just one more thing to complain about in the transition from public school.

There were reasons for each rule, of course, even when they weren't stated. In regards to clothing, they wanted the kids to feel and act more professionally, and there is a correlation with clothing and behavior. Not fool-proof, however. You've heard of the old adage, "The clothing makes the man." Or, more Biblically, God wanting the Old Testament priests to dress a certain way to give them dignity and respect.

"Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honour." - Exodus 28:2

It is also more complicated than perhaps it originally looks because we are told, "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities." - Romans 13:1. So usually, I tend toward obeying the ridiculous or burdensome rule, unless there's a very clear, compelling reason that it's immoral to do so. "We must obey God rather than men." - Acts 5:29.

Well, okay, that's more my theological stance. Sometimes, I'm afraid, the rules seem so unnecessary or so burdensome that I have been known to forego them. I am not inherently a rule-follower. I have to remind myself that I obey the rules because I love Jesus and because I am convinced His way is best. Externally, I realize, it can look the same: obeying rules because someone's a rule-follower vs. obeying rules because one wants to honor Jesus. Inwardly, there's quite a difference.

I shocked some kids I had on a field trip once by going into an employees only area of a restaurant to get some ice for a sick kid when we couldn't get anyone's attention. The memory makes me laugh. But I did not see that as one of God's golden rules.

By and large, for the most part, the rules were not something that I wrestled or struggled under. I remember my dad, who, before I was born, taught math at a Christian school. (My earliest memories of his career were him teaching at a public college.) When he taught at the Christian school, and his students would chaff under the rules, he would remind them that it was just for a few years, and then they could do as they wanted. He had the more long-term perspective. That seemed like sound advice to me, not to forego the good in a school for the sake of a few nonsensical or burdensome rules that were temporary. (And I really do love our school and think there is vast good there.)

His attitude was one of meeting legalism with a shrug, not a fiery response, and continuing on the right way to go.

There is, of course, a danger in legalism of trying to get to heaven by good works. It won't get us there. I like Charles Spurgeon's comment that trying to get to heaven by good works is like trying to sail the Atlantic in a paper boat. But I think all these places - the churches, the school - realize that salvation comes through Jesus alone, through His sacrifice.

So, I wished the book was a little more clear about distinguishing God's rules from man-made rules. Otherwise, I can see it as confusing to people who've never contemplated it before. Why is he saying that the rule against adultery is important when he's saying that the rule about dancing isn't? Aren't they both about grace?

And I do think it's important that he noted we cannot push people into choosing the moral decision, as much as we'd like to spare them the horrific consequences of such a decision. It's got to be their own choice.

"Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.” - Revelation 22:11

This is where many ministries and missionaries went wrong in the past. Coerced faith is not faith at all, and is of worse value than no value. It only builds resentment towards the things of God.

That does not mean that there should be indifference and lack of reaching out to those who go astray, just that the final decision is theirs.

Grace...who doesn't need it? Everyone needs Grace to flourish in a world full of trials and tribulations. Grace allows others to live free and it allows the giver to live free too. I enjoyed this book, learned new insights, and I plan to read it again. This book would refresh and energize anyone who takes the time to invest in the reading of it. Highly recommended book.

Another excellent book on understanding God's grace!