Grace: A Bigger View of God's Love

Alcorn (Heaven), the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries, offers more than 200 daily thoughts to help readers better understand God's many-faceted grace. Each brief entry offers a Bible verse, some thoughts about it (one to several paragraphs in length), and an inspirational quote. The book doesn't try to redefine grace, but rather explains that the gift of grace isn't something to be taken for granted, and helps readers wrap their heads around the hard-to-understand concept that God loves and forgives all of us without condition. Understanding that gift, these passages suggest, can lead readers to view themselves as sinners who are well loved, and serve as a catalyst and example for how to extend grace to others both in and outside of the church. Alcorn often contemplates daunting concepts such as having to confront sin that's contemplated or committed in the best interests of another person. At other times the message is much more winsome, as when, on a Christmas morning, he ponders the wondrous gift of redemption. Alcorn effectively demonstrates how grace itself allows believers to understand the nature of being given a gift that no one could never deserve. (July)