Amazing Grace

Of all the songs I love to sing, this is one �if not the one- which I love the most. Think about it. �Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I am found, was blind but now I see.� Everyone today, who believes Christ and receives Him as Lord and Savior, was once lost and blind, but now found and able to see.
It was many years after I first learned this song, before I began to get a hint of its history. A few more years would pass before I read the whole story of the author�s salvation. And a few more years before I discovered that his true conversion didn�t take place until a few years after he received Christ. Believe me I was totally shocked by this revelation. As an American of African/Native American (?) decent, it suddenly felt weird to sing a song written by a professing Christian who�s livelihood was the buying and selling of human beings; people who looked just like me I was shocked, outraged, confused. What did this mean? How could this man call himself a Christian and then do such a horrible thing. (Have you every heard or seen something and had that thought come to your mind? If it wasn�t so serious, it would almost be laughable.)
Anyway, I smile to myself here and now at the goodness of our faithful, faithful, faithful God. One glimpse at the Cross of Christ and one long, long look at myself very quickly exposed me in all my ugliness, to myself. And I am a Christian!! Yes a Christian, who, like John Newton is in the process, process, process, of transforming change. I can no more harshly judge him now than I could judge my own heart, were it laid bear before a Holy Righteous God.
Sure, if I were to compare me to him, I might be strongly tempted to say, �Well, at least I never did something as horrible as selling slaves.� But, if I set as my standard of righteousness, as God�s own righteousness then I don�t look so good, even to myself.
So, I conclude with this. Amazing Grace, how sweet this sound, this fact, that saved a sinful wretch like me. I once was lost, but now, I am found. I was blind, but now I see.
God�s grace is amazing! And were it not for His grace, oh dear one�s what wretches we would all surely be.

My Challenge to You Today:
Pause and ponder the goodness and the grace, the unmerited favor of God. And then bow down and worship, He who is the God of Your salvation!

Stephanie

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