It is a phenomenal book that is blowing my mind.
I love how in Chapter 1, he breaks down what gratitude is and it isn't when describing the debtor's ethic.
How often do we respond to God as well as other people to gifts given to us like there is some debt now owed to the giver? It is that awkward feeling when a friend gives you a Christmas gift and you have nothing to give in return. We play this game with God as well and it's a slippery slope into trying to pay back God for His grace, as if that would ever be possible.
Instead of making gratitude our motivation for obedience, we should rather make the fear of the Lord and faith in a future grace the motivating factor for obedience in Christ.
This was a great aside starting Chapter 2:
The effort to repay God, in the ordinary way we pay creitors, would nullify grace and turn it into a business transaction. If we see acts of obedience as installment payments, we make grace into a mortgage... Let us not say that grace creates debts; let us say that grace pays debts.
Past grace is glorified by intense and joyful gratitude. Future grace is glorified by intense and joyful confidence. This faith is what empowers us for venturesome obedience in the cause of Christ.
I just love "venturesome obedience in the cause of Christ".
A friend sent via email yesterday a message about what he was reading about Grace and included a quote from Spurgeon on the topic that I thought was fantastic:
"When I thought God was hard, I found it easy to sin; but when I found God so kind, so good, so overflowing with compassion, I beat my breast to think I could ever have rebelled against One who loved me so and sought my good"
God often blesses us with a "grace given" in the circle of "grace denied."
Future Grace, chapter 4, location 1389
God often blesses us with a "grace given" in the circle of "grace denied."
Future Grace, chapter 4, location 1389