Amazing Grace

A friend of mine gave me a book by Philip Yancey called "What's So Amazing About Grace?". And as the title implies, the book is about conveying grace, and understanding the very nature of the unconditional love of God towards us, and the unflinching forgiveness and intentional overlooking of our shortcomings by Him. Grace is to recieve what one has in no way deserved, Philip describes that the very nature of our secular world is one of ungrace, where you will never, ever recieve anything that you have not earned. No position, rank, job, promotion, etc. will ever be given to you out of grace. Respect and status is earned, we conform to society (which means you are constantly working to try and fit into the shape society says you should fit), all of these things are ungracious. The book talks about how even many christians, holding so tightly to their doctrines and to their rules and laws to become like the world, ungraceful. This is only the first 4 chapters of the book by the way :P. One of the paragraphs talked about a discussion between C.S. Lewis and some other people about what was so unique about christianity as a religion. The answer, was grace. To recieve the forgiveness we do not deserve, and to gain a relationship with God that came at no cost to us, all we had to do was to accept it. One of the first lines in the book was about a prostitute, wretched, homeless and sick selling of her 2 yr old child to support her drug addiction. When asked about whether she ever considered going to a church for help, her response was "Church! Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They'd just make me feel worse." I guess I'm simply repeating the authors words but I guess it just sheds new light upon old things. I'm becoming less and less coherent... I'm not sure if I'm actually making sense anymore... it's 3:13am... I'm tired... I need sleep...