Strobel - The case for grace: a journalist explores the evidence of transformed lives

Also by Lee Strobel

The Ambition (fiction)
The Case for Christ
The Case for Christianity Answer Book
The Case for Christmas
The Case for Christ Study Bible (general editor)
The Case for a Creator
The Case for Easter
The Case for Faith
The Case for the Real Jesus
Experiencing the Passion of Jesus (with Garry Poole)
Faith Under Fire: Exploring Christianitys Ten Toughest Questions (with Garry Poole)
Gods Outrageous Claims
Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary
Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage (with Leslie Strobel)
The Unexpected Adventure (with Mark Mittelberg)
What Jesus Would Say

ZONDERVAN

The Case for Grace
Copyright 2015 by Lee Strobel

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Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition January 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-33430-9

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Cover design: Faceout Studio

Cover photography: Arti! / Getty Images

Interior design: Beth Shagene

First printing January 2015

For Abigail, Penelope,
Brighton, and Oliver
Gods gifts of grace

Contents

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!

2 Corinthians 5:17

Gods grace is the sole basis for both new life and spiritual vitality.

Stanley Grenz

D efining grace can be as simple as one declarative sentence: Grace is the favor shown by God to sinners. From there, it can be expounded upon in volumes of theological treatises, but at its core it is an unmerited and unconditional gift of Gods love that we can never earn or deserve.

Grace enables us to respond to God, enfolds us into his family, and empowers us to change. Theologian Thomas C. Oden said grace is necessary to know truth, avoid sin, act well, pray fittingly, desire salvation, begin to have faith and persevere in faith.

Definitions are important, but this is not a textbook on grace. Instead, it is a collection of stories that illustrate the power of God to revolutionize human lives to turn a homeless junkie into an ordained pastor; an adulterer into a marriage counselor; a reckless rebel into a selfless servant of God; and a mass murderer into a pardoned saint.

Our past sins are not only forgiven (through Christ), said Charles Colson, but we are transformed to live a new life with Gods power and grace.

This book describes a very personal journey for me, spawned by a crisis with my father, which sent me on a lifelong quest to solve the riddle of grace. Along the way, I found the undeniable evidence of grace in the life of a Korean orphan, shivering under straw in a foxhole; in a teenage addict in Amarillo, who didnt care whether his next injection would kill him; in a homeless felon in Las Vegas, scouring dumpsters for scraps of pizza crust; in a humiliated pastor in South Carolina, unmasked for his blatant hypocrisy; in the famous preachers son who was living a wasted and vapid life in Boston; and in a Cambodian man who fled the Khmer Rouge, only to find his life intertwined with a notorious war criminal.

Each story contributes a piece to the grace puzzle, showing how grace goes beyond forgiveness to acceptance and even adoption by God; how it restores hope when none is left; how it extends to the most heinous circumstances; and how it allows us to forgive those who caused our most intimate wounds and even to forgive ourselves. In other words, insights that all of us need.

As Christianity is unique among world religions, so is the grace Christ offers. Sometimes to understand grace we need to see it described rather than merely defined. After all, the Bible is one grand narrative about grace; when Jesus wanted his followers to fully feel the emotional impact of grace, he spun a parable about a Prodigal Son. Jesus talked a lot about grace, but mainly through stories, said Yancey.

So here are stories for you true accounts of people whose transformation and renewal are so radical that they seem to be best explained as the work of a gracious God. Through them, I trust you will see your story playing out as well.

[God] waits to be wanted. Too bad that with many of us He waits so long, so very long, in vain.

A. W. Tozer

H e was leaning back in his leather recliner in the wood-paneled den, his eyes darting back and forth between the television set and me, as if he didnt deign to devote his full attention to our confrontation. In staccato bursts, he would lecture and scold and shout, but his eyes never met mine.

It was the evening before my high school graduation, and my dad had caught me lying to him big-time.

Finally, he snapped his chair forward and shifted to look fully into my face, his eyes angry slits behind his glasses. He held up his left hand, waving his pinky like a taunt as he pounded each and every word: I dont have enough love for you to fill my little finger.

He paused as the words smoldered. He was probably expecting me to fight back, to defend myself, to blubber or apologize or give in at least to react in some way. But all I could do was to glare at him, my face flushed. Then after a few tense moments he sighed deeply, reclined again in his chair, and resumed watching TV.

Thats when I turned my back on my father and strode toward the door.

I didnt need him. I was brash, I was driven and ambitious I would slice my way through the world without his help. After all, I was about to make almost a hundred dollars a week at a summer job as a reporter for a rural newspaper in Woodstock, Illinois, and live on my own at a boarding house.

A plan formulated in my mind as I slammed the back door and began the trek toward the train station, lugging the duffel bag I had hurriedly packed. I would ask the newspaper to keep me on after the summer. Lots of reporters have succeeded without college, so why not me? Soon Id make a name for myself. Id impress the editors at the Chicago papers and eventually break into the big city. Id ask my girlfriend to move in with me. I was determined to make it on my own and never to go back home.

Someday, there would be payback. The day would come when my father would unfold the Chicago Tribune and his eye would catch my byline on a front-page exclusive. That would show him.

I was on a mission and it was fueled by rage. But what I didnt realize as I marched down the gravel shoulder of the highway on that sultry June evening was that I was actually launching a far different quest than what I had supposed. It was a journey that I couldnt understand back then and which would one day reshape my life in ways I never could have imagined.