Book Review: Grace is Greater by Kyle Idleman

If you have been in church for a long, you might have heard the old hymn, "Grace Greater Than Our Sin," which the chorus goes like this:

Grace, grace, God's grace,
grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
grace, grace, God's grace,
grace that is greater than all our sin!

We sing about the grace of God being greater than our sins and we preach it as well. Lots of times Christians don't believe it because they still feel regret over their sins. If you are in a healthy, gospel-centered church, you will hear preaching that Jesus paid the debt of sin you owed to God. The gospel message is that God has made sinners clean through the blood of Christ.

There are some churches that do teach grace and books have been written on grace which takes a more therapeutic approach. What I mean is grace is taught where you can become a better person. God takes you mess and make a message. Sins are called mistakes which not all mistakes are sins. This is the approach that Kyle Idleman takes in his latest book, Grace Is Greater. The subtitle of the books says, "God's Plan to Overcome Your Past, Redeem Your Pain, and Rewrite Your Story." This implies that grace is about you, not God.

Not Idleman does call sin, sin, but there are times he does take mistakes and equates them with sin. He does recognize his need for grace as he continues to see his sin for what its worth. He talks about grace covering our brokenness and taking away our disappointments which he does address sin then turns it to a more therapeutic teaching.

I wanted to like this book, but I kept wanting to put it down. Granted, there are a few things I did agree with Idleman on, but overall, this is one book on grace I would avoid.

Thanks Baker Publishing for letting me review this book.