Extravagant Grace: God's Glory Displayed in Our Weakness Author: Barbara Duguid | Language: English | ISBN:
B00EP01PRS | Format: PDF
Extravagant Grace: God's Glory Displayed in Our Weakness Description
Why do Christians—even mature Christians—still sin so often? Why doesn’t God set us free? We seem to notice more sin in our lives all the time, and we wonder if our progress is a constant disappointment to God. Where is the joy and peace we read about in the Bible?
Speaking from her own struggles, Barbara Duguid turns to the writings of John Newton to teach us God’s purpose for our failure and guilt—and to help us adjust our expectations of ourselves. Her empathetic, honest approach lifts our focus from our own performance back to the God who is bigger than our failures—and who uses them for his glory. Rediscover how God’s extravagant grace makes the gospel once again feel like the good news it truly is!
- File Size: 448 KB
- Print Length: 240 pages
- Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
- Publisher: P&R Publishing (August 16, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00EP01PRS
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,599 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
First of all, I would just like to publicly thank Barbara Duguid for writing this book. It must have taken a strong passion for God's people and an enormous humility on her own part. The title is perfect, and yet didn't prepare me for how I would wrestle with its contents. While affirming and expounding on the great doctrines of grace that I uphold, Duguid hashes out the implications of this grace that we often either avoid or even deny.
Using John Newton's teaching on sanctification, Duguid gets into the nitty-gritty of God's sovereignty over sin. If God really is all-powerful, then we have to admit that he could have made our struggle with sin a lot easier after our conversion. He could have ordained it so that we sin less and less as we grow in sanctification. But every Christian can attest to the fact that this isn't the case. Instead, the more I grow in grace the more deplorable I find my sinful state to be, and the more drawn I am to the foot of the cross. I have to face this troubling truth that my sovereign, holy, loving God allows me to continue in my sin when he could prevent me from it. In fact, my obedience is also granted by God. While he does prevent me from much sin, sometimes he continues to let me struggle and even fail with sin that I desperately wish I could "slay."
Duguid asks the question, "What if growing in grace is more about humility, dependence, and exalting Christ than it is about defeating sin?" (loc. 99). Does that question make you mad? I think people get scared when they hear this kind of grace being taught. I mean, sin is evil! And we know that God hates it. The fear is that this knowledge that God is even sovereign over our obedience and sin would lead us to sin presumptuously and have no desire for holiness.
This is a book that is hard to read. At least it was for me. And, I am not saying "hard to read" in the manner of, "I just don't understand what she is saying!" No, I understood perfectly throughout. Mrs. Duguid is a brilliant writer. She conveys her points beautifully and clearly and leaves no worldly obstacles to overcome in understanding what she is saying. Her writing is fun and fluid and filled with humor, heaviness, and heart.
But it is hard to read. The content she covers is shocking. She leads the reader through some territory that is uncharted for many readers, Christian or non. She does so with a boldness and ease that can be quite disorienting to the reader. Frankly, at times, the subject she covers and the manner in which she does so is downright offensive. There were times I argued out loud with this book. And I am so happy, and eternally blessed, that the objections I offered arose from my flesh and not the Spirit who is in me.
"Perhaps our greatest problem (as Christians) is not the reality of our sin, but our unbiblical expectations of what Christian growth should look like."
This "perhaps" finds itself to be shown to be a resounding "most definitely" throughout Extravagant Grace. Why did God choose to sanctify believers progressively? If His only goal in sanctification is for us to sin less, why doesn't He remove all temptations, struggles, sinful desires, etc...to ensure our sinless Christian life? If I am His and He is sovereign and His sole desire is for me to stop sinning, then why do I still sin at all?
Duguid answers these questions with a theology of sanctification that is wholly biblical and historically orthodox yet, for some odd reason, is relatively an alien and offensive concept to so many believers today.
Extravagant Grace: God's Glory Displayed in Our Weakness Preview
Link
Please Wait...