Gracious Forgiveness

Who knows the truth of our sinful nature more than each of us personally?  We don’t shout it from the mountain top.  We don’t brag about it during Sunday school class.  We try to hide it from our neighbors, our children and our spouses.  But we know it.  We live with it.  We know our mind and we know that what the Scripture says about us is true, “The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (Gen. 8:21)  When we think that no one else knows about this condition we are wrong.  Someone else does.  Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple and said, “For You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.”  (1 Kings 8:39) God knows.  Yet in knowing He still loves us and forgives us in Christ.  That is grace in Christ. 

In Luke 18 two men went into the temple to pray.  One told God how good he was.  The other beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me a sinner”.  Jesus said that that man went down to his house justified or made right with God.  That is grace in Christ.

Basil Manly, Jr. wrote a hymn that is no longer well known.  It touches us all at a sore point in our being.  It is titled, “Lord, I Deserve Thy Deepest Wrath”.  That is a catchy phrase you won’t find in too much contemporary Christian music!  But it is a doctrinal truth that should grip our heart with the majesty of the grace of God.  We do indeed deserve His deepest wrath, but He poured it out on Christ instead.  That is grace in Christ. 

Manly’s first verse reads, “Lord, I deserve thy deepest wrath, ungrateful, faithless I have been; no terrors have my soul deterred, nor goodness wooed me from my sin.”  What an honest self indictment.  His second verse doesn’t make us feel any better, “My heart is vile, my mind depraved, my flesh rebels against Thy will; I am polluted in Thy sight
yet, Lord have mercy on me still!” At the end of this verse, however, he gets to the point.  We need mercy and it can come only from God.  He wraps up this thought in his final verse, “Speak peace to me, my sins forgive, dwell Thou within my heart, O God, The guilt and pow’r of sin remove, and fit me for Thy blest abode.”  To this cry God has responded with the cross of His dear Son.  Through Christ alone we can find cleansing for eternity and for each day.  Praise God for grace in Christ for our daily need.  

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