So generally, I just like to summarize Yancey’s thoughts and reflect on them a little, but for this Christmas post I liked his words so much, I’m just going to give them to you straight up. I think this is one of the more profound things I’ve read this Christmas. So reflect on how amazing [...]
Continue reading about Grace Notes- How Scary Was the Incarnation for God?
How do you think you would have reacted had you received the same invitation as Mary?
But let’s start out by being honest- was Mary’s reaction really quite so serene as is generally pictured? Yancey does a good job of pointing out that to understand the incredible nature of the Christmas story there are some phrases [...]
Continue reading about Grace Notes- You’re Invited to a Party
Have you ever dealt with despair? Maybe not in your own life, but maybe in the life of someone close. Or maybe you’ve at least tasted it a little in the writings of an existentialist or something of the sort. This sense that ultimately things are meaningless. A person is too small and everything is [...]
Have you ever been tempted by contract faith?
You know what I’m talking about- the thought that sometimes creeps in along this line, “I’m really working hard God, trying to do something good for you and your people, so how could you let ________ happen to me?”
Yancey notes this can actually be more of a temptation [...]
I always find people’s discussions of famliy get-togethers interesting. Most people speak of holidays, like the upcoming Thankgiving and Christmas, as affairs where all kinds of different types in your family get together, full of fun, but also complete with arguments, tension between black sheep and family patriarchs, etc. I can’t say I’ve experienced a [...]
I read a few devotions from Yancey that all flowed together, all exceprts from the book, What’s So Amazing About Grace? The main theme was a discussion of what’s distinctive about the Church? How will people notice that the Church is different?
That’s where he brings up the metaphor of mirror or window. So often the [...]
When you hear the name Philip Yancey you just think of the spiritual giant, the man who’s authored countless works on the faith. But in the devotions I read this week, he talks about a time in his life most would not expect, a time of unbelief and skepticism. Now what’s interesting is that he [...]
Continue reading about Grace Notes- A Surprising Look Inside
The last couple of readings from Yancey I really loved. In a two-part devotion he speaks about his experiences of finding God in unusual places, specifically here of his experiences with prison ministry. Not something most of us have much contact with, nor is it something most of us probably want to find ourselves doing, [...]
Continue reading about Grace Notes- Finding God in Unexpected Places
What can I get away with? How much do I have to do?
Yancey’s devotion that hit me this week revolved around this theme. He shares a story from graduate school. One of the requirements for completion was to take some basic German and pass a test. This was not something that excited him. But he did [...]
Continue reading about Grace Notes- What can I get away with. . .
In this reading, Yancey speaks about his trip to South Africa in 2006. He toured through a number of cities and he said what most astounded him was how this country modeled to him the concept of grace on such a large level. It was a country that disassembled it’s nuclear weapons rather than building [...]
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