GOD’S HUMBLING GRACE IN CHRIST
For
any who are under the false illusion that they are somehow growing in
perfection and holiness, consider carefully the following excerpt
taken from a letter by John Newton (preacher and author of the hymn,
“Amazing Grace”) to a friend, written on Nov. 23, 1774 A.D.
“I
have no idea of any permanent state in this life, that shall make my
experience cease to be a state of warfare and humiliation. At
my first setting out, indeed, I thought to be better, and to feel
myself better, from year to year. I expected, by degrees, to
attain everything that I then comprised in my idea of a saint.
I thought my grain of grace, by much diligence and careful
improvement, would, in time, amount to a pound. That pound, in a
farther space of time, to a talent, and then I hoped to increase from
one talent to many, so that supposing the Lord should spare me a
competent number of years, I pleased myself with the thoughts of
dying rich.
But,
alas! These golden expectations have been like South Sea
dreams. I have lived hitherto a poor sinner, and I believe I
shall die one. Have I then gained nothing by waiting upon the
Lord? Yes, I have gained that which proofs of the deceitfulness
and desperate wickedness of my heart, as I hope, by the Lord’s
blessing, have, in some measure, taught me to know what I mean, when
I say, ‘Behold, I am vile!’ In connection with this, I have
gained such experience of the wisdom, power, and compassion of my
Redeemer, the need, the worth of His blood, righteousness, ascension,
and intercession, the glory that He displays in pardoning iniquity
and sin, and passing by the transgression of the remnant of His
heritage, that my soul cannot but cry out, “Who is a
God like unto Thee?”
-copied
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