Extravagant Grace: Devotions That Celebrate God's Gift of Grace - Hardcover

Clairmont, Patsy; Johnson, Barbara; Meberg, Marilyn; Swindoll, Luci; Walsh, Sheila; Wells, Thelma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0310231256 ISBN 13: 9780310231257

Publisher: Zondervan, 1999

Synopsis

Women of Faith points you to the bedrock of joy: grace. Grace describes things beyond your ability to earn or attain, gifts you can only gratefully receive from a God who lavishes them on you freely. With the same wit and insight that have characterized their previous devotionals such as Joy Breaks and Overjoyed! Patsy Clairmont, Barbara Johnson, Marilyn Meberg, Luci Swindoll, Sheila Walsh, and Thelma Wells shine a spotlight for you on grace. Grace that cleanses your sin. Grace that guides your life. Grace that weathers life's fiercest storms and stamps every cloud with the rainbow of God's promise. Grace to grieve and laugh, give and gain, love and live. Extravagant Grace. Here is a devotional filled with laughter as a rich as the insights are deep. Extravagant Grace celebrates God's liberating power at work in your circumstances, your relationships, your inner being, your marriage, your vocations, in all the things that matter most to you . . . and even in things that seem to be of little consequence. Extravagant Grace will encourage you to look for grace in all of life's seasons, come rains or shine -- and to give it away as freely and joyously as you receive it.

About this title

Synopsis:

Women of Faith presents 60 devotions from some of America's best-loved authors to help women celebrate God's overwhelming grace.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

What picture comes to mind when you hear the word grace? I think of a woman named — what else — Grace who lived near our family’s home when I was growing up. She and her husband were friends of my parents and, believe me, that’s where the friendship ended. Grace had no, uh, grace for children. She and her husband didn’t have little ones of their own so perhaps that’s why Grace had no space in her heart for me.
Of course, I was a precocious pip-squeak, quite full of myself. I was a second child, the first girl, who arrived in our family after a nine-year interval. That gave me some distinct advantages, of which I took full advantage. Grace evidently struggled with my indulged ways. I, too, struggled . . . with Grace.
Years later, in desperate hours of my life, I experienced another grace: God’s grace. The Lord gave me a place to stand in his presence — me, the precocious kid, now a confused adult. I couldn’t believe he had space in his heart for me. This undeserved reception and inclusion stunned me. And, honestly, I struggled . . . with grace.
Two distinct pictures of "grace." One portrays not even a smidgen of favor or friendly regard; the other speaks of lavish acceptance. I had trouble with both.
I couldn’t bear the feelings I had when I was in Grace’s home. I felt physically rigid and certain that if I bumped anything or dropped something my life expectancy would be reduced drastically. Yet what troubled me most wasn’t just the sense that I might do something wrong but the feeling I was something wrong.
God’s grace, which gave me the freedom to be myself without condemnation, was not only foreign but also a little frightening. I was used to trying to win approval and not receiving it until I had performed some necessary stunts, like making my bed, saying my prayers, and attending church thirty-three times a week. Unmerited favor is hard to swallow, and yet, when received, it sweetly quenches my deep thirst for unconditional love.
A third picture of grace comes to my mind — the grace depicted in a painting of an iris. Actually two paintings: one portrays beds of this lovely, elegant flower; the other a single iris. When you view these famous works of art, you see only the flowers; you have no sense of their location. Are they in a city park, a flowered field, or perhaps on a rambling farm?
There’s a reason for the mystery. Not only does the artist’s selective focus keep us from being distracted by peripheral objects, we also aren’t alerted to the artist’s real world. The painter, Vincent van Gogh, created his masterpieces in an asylum.
In some of the darkest hours of his life, van Gogh found a single, graceful flower, and he made that his focus. His outside world at the asylum was grim at best, and everything around him was a reminder of his internal sadness. Yet somehow van Gogh, when he saw the irises, was able to connect himself to the only lovely thing in his surroundings. Captured by the flowers’ gracefulness, he painted them several times. Yet it is believed he never found the inner grace or peace he was searching for. He never saw beyond the purple iris to its providential Designer. He struggled . . . with grace.
I, too, have seen grace in God’s creations — a swan gliding across a still pond, a gazelle leaping across an African plain, an eagle soaring above a craggy cliff. As effortless as those movements are, so is the ease with which God bestows his extravagant gift of grace into our lives.
Grace is stunning. It is breathtaking. It is more beautiful than van Gogh’s Irises. Grace finds us in our poverty and presents us with the gift of an inheritance we didn’t deserve . . . the gift of grace.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Philemon 1:3

About this edition

• Publisher: Zondervan
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0310231256
• ISBN 13: 9780310231257
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 219