What The Grace Of God Can Do, By Michael Ogedegbe

                             BOOK REVIEW

Title:              Power Of The Grace Of God

Author:          Michael Ogedegbe

Publisher:      EhiDayo Designs

No. of Pages: 47

Price:             Not stated

Reviewer:      Nath McAbraham-Inajoh, IAP, MA, MBA, JP.

The book, the Power of the Grace of God, is an examination of what the grace of God does in the life of a person. The author begins by explaining what grace means and he defines grace as “a spontaneous generous free gift from God to people or persons who do not deserve it or who are not expecting it.”

In Chapter One of the book, the author looks at the subject of the Grace of God in salvation. As part of his exploration of this theme, the author made it obvious that humanity, under the Law, was burdened with a lot of sacrifices that were meant to atone for sins, but these were still not sufficient especially in the light of the fact that when one was done with one sacrifice, another set of sins are committed necessitating the repetition of the sacrifice. The author made it clear that the consistent sacrifices and the ineffectiveness of the sacrifices led to the unveiling of God’s plan which He had perfected at creation, and that unveiling revealed the work of Jesus Christ whose very presence in the life of a person is an act of grace. With several examples from the Bible, he also showed how people who were not deserving of God’s grace received the grace of God and thereby became saved.

The 2nd chapter of the book focused on the grace of God for healing. Here the author made it clear that sickness was not a part of God’s original creation, however it was one of the fallouts of the fall of man. He also postulated that God is the Healer, and not medical science nor any form of medication that a sick person may take. The author goes on to state that if God does not get involved in the healing process there can be no healing. Using several examples from the Bible, the author shows us several characters who received the grace of healing. One that stood out for the author was the sick man by the pool of Bethesda who was one out of several other sick people, and had no way of ever getting healed, but the grace of God walked up to him in the person of Jesus Christ, singled him out and brought healing to him.

In chapter three the author looks at how the grace of God can propel a person from a nobody to a very important person (VIP). He takes us to the story of the boy David who was later anointed king over and above his brothers who had the military expertise, the physiology, and the advantage of birth position, but all these were ignored when it was time for a new king to be anointed. So, from the backside of the desert, David was summoned to be anointed king in the presence of his father and brothers thus making him the second king of Israel. It is the power of this grace to locate the most unlikely people that is most spectacular. We are also directed to the life of Mephibosheth who was the crippled son of Jonathan. Mephibosheth had been consigned to the backwoods of life as a result of an accident that left him a cripple for life. Not only was he a cripple, he was also hidden from sight as he was sent to live in the House of Machir in LoDebar where the grace of God was to locate him. The king sent for him to be fetched from Lo Debar and Mephibosheth became a regular face at the King’s table during meals for the king promoted him to the position of a son so that he sat with the king during meals.This is the grace that propels from nobody to VIP

Pursuing a similar theme in chapter four, the author concentrates on the Grace that Singles out from the Multitude for favour. Again, he goes back to the story of the sick man by the pool of Bethesda where the Bible was clear that there was a very great multitude of sick people waiting to be made whole, but Jesus bypassed all these people and went straight to this helpless and hopeless man. As the grace of God visited him, healing was his testimony. In the same way the author draws our attention to the captains of Israel who were seated together at a meeting and the prophet Elijah approached them and greeted them in unison. However, because there was a grace to locate a particular individual at work, Jehu was located, and he was anointed to be king and the moment he was anointed to be king he was no longer age mates with his contemporaries for grace had set him apart. Here the author draws attention to the fact that we could be age mates, classmates and mates in several other areas, but grace is a distinguishing factor and when this grace is activated in the life of a person this person ceases to be mates with his or her contemporaries. The story of the twins Esau and Jacob is also referenced here.

Chapter Five is titled Grace for Long Life and here, the author made it clear that even though it is appointed unto man once to die after that the judgment, there are people that God locates with the grace of long life even amid challenges. For instance, the author draws attention to the fact that in Nigeria today the official expected lifespan is fifty years, but when the grace for long life locates a person even in a country like Nigeria, the person lives beyond fifty and could get to be a hundred and more.

In these five chapters, the author makes a very spirited effort to draw the attention of the reader to the difference that the Power of the Grace of God can make in a person’s life, then he moves on to chapter six where he shares several personal testimonies that are both outstanding, spectacular, and awe-inspiring.

With these testimonies the author shows that the Power of the Grace of God is not only at work today but is available to anyone and everyone who will make themselves open to receiving it. He also did a good job in explaining the power of the grace of God.

Though the book is small, the author was able, in few pages, to kindle a desire in the heart of the reader for greater experience of the Power of the Grace of God. In this regard, the author has succeeded.

On a general note, the book would have benefited greatly from the work of a skilled editor as quite a few grammatical and spelling errors would have been taking care of. It is my hope that in subsequent revisions, these errors would be corrected.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW AND EXPERIENCE THE POWER OF GOD’S GRACE, BUY AND READ A COPY OF THIS BOOK