Unmerited Favor (Book Review)

So, you think you’ve been saved by grace, but now you have to constantly do things to please God, compile a bigger reward in heaven, achieve the respect of the church leadership, and gain the right to have a ministry?

Maybe you see others who are not as faithful as you receiving all the blessings and recognition, while you’re working harder than ever, but you still feel like the tail and not the head.  Perhaps you grit your teeth and strain every blood vessel to get over offense, love your brothers and sisters, and overcome besetting sin, but your valiant efforts have only left you frustrated and exhausted.  The problem is in not understanding the place of God’s grace toward us after we have received salvation at the cross.

Joseph Prince’s first book, Destined to Reign, opened my eyes to something I had been living under all my adult Christian life — the prevalent Church mentality that once we are saved, we must perform in order to receive the blessings of God and the favor of other people.  We think we live in grace, but in actuality, we are relating to ourselves and each other as though we are still under the Law.   So we strive endlessly to bring about by our constant “doing” what God always meant to have flow through us by the leading of His Spirit.

Unmerited Favor is Joseph Prince’s second book on how to dwell effortlessly in the grace of God and thereby live the successful, joy-filled life He always intended for us to have.  It is, in my opinion, even better than his first book.   I find so much encouragement and freedom through the principles it lays out that I am in the midst of reading it for the third time.

The book’s premise is that when we embrace Jesus’ finished work at the cross as our only basis for expecting favor, the futile striving to achieve our desires through our own excellence ends, and the blessing of God begins to manifest in our lives effortlessly.  We learn to stop trying to change ourselves and, instead, rest in the work of the Holy Spirit to change us from the inside out.  We stop stressing about whether we have enough faith to receive answers to prayer, and believe His response to our prayers is certain because of the covenant we have with the Father through Jesus.  We are assured of His deep love for us, not based on what we do, but on who we are — the “accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).   Beholding Jesus, rather than looking at ourselves, our circumstances, and the people around us, is the key.

Here are some quotes:

The moment you realize your heart is heavy with worry and your mind is plagued by anxiety, share your challenge with Jesus and thank Him that this problem is not bigger than His hands.  Begin to surrender it to Him and depend on Him for His strength, power, and peace.  … As you honor His presence and behave like He is indeed with you, He sees it as faith in Him and intervenes on your behalf for your success in whatever situation you may be in.

The grace of God answers you in your most undeserving moment.  …  A heart that has been touched by unmerited favor [grace] cannot hold on to unforgiveness, anger, and bitterness. … A recipient of favor can’t help but want to extend grace to others.

[About abiding in Jesus' righteousness, not our own efforts to be righteous for Him:] The more righteousness-conscious you are, the more of God’s unmerited favor you will experience.  When the voice of disqualification comes to remind you of all the areas that you have fallen short in, that’s the time to turn to Jesus and hear His voice, which qualifies you.

Does it work, or is it all nice theory calculated to sell books?  The congregation that Joseph Prince pastors regularly sees many salvations, freedom from addictions, restoration of marriages, financial turnarounds, and healing miracles, including cancers disappearing, because they have learned to make Jesus the focus.  The grace they are embracing is not an “anything goes” false grace, but a grace that so fills them with love for Jesus that they can’t help but lead pure lives.

The demonstrated power of God is what both Christians and the world around us long to see, and understanding the unmerited favor of God through Jesus in our lives is the open door to get there.   

Unmerited Favor at Amazon  

Destined to Reign at Amazon