To Know Him

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;
Hosea 6:3

I was made for this. You were made for this. To give ourselves to the never-ending pursuit of knowing God in the fullness of His being. This is the goal of the gospel.

And it took years of enslavement to sexual lust and the gratification found in pornography to figure this out. Confessing my sin didn't break the power. Setting up filters on my computer didn't break the power. Distracting myself with other things didn't break the power. One truth did: that I am made to know and be satisfied with the supremacy of God in all things. These two paragraphs written by John Piper encapsulate this truth that had a cataclysmic effect on my life:

Little souls make little lusts have great power. The soul, as it were, expands to encompass the magnitude of its treasure. The human soul was made to see and savor the supremacy of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to enlarge the soul as God intended and make little lusts lose their power.

...

Therefore, the deepest cure to our pitiful addictions is not any mental strategies—and I believe in them and have my own ... The deepest cure is to be intellectually and emotionally staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging supremacy of Christ in all things. This is what it means to know him. Christ has purchased this gift for us at the cost of his life. Therefore, I say again with Hosea, let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.

Those two paragraphs have forever changed my life.

For my entire teenage life, my soul, which was made to be large and filled with the infinite Christ, was no bigger than a marble. So small earthly pleasures to me seemed transcendent. The buzz of an orgasm filled me to overflowing so that this is what I continually longed for. This was the satisfaction of my soul so that no matter what I did to fight such desires the need remained the same.

And then I read what John Piper wrote. Better yet, I heard him preach it. I had never in my life or in any book I read about how to fight lust heard anyone say the truth that is contained in those two paragraphs. And then he said this: "If you aren't reading substantial theology, I don't know how you are fighting your lust."

Read theology? Are you kidding me? That just seems like another distraction to me. Such were my thoughts. But Piper wasn't kidding. He said it with life and death seriousness and urgency. So I decided to take him up on the suggestion. And I learned that he wasn't lying either.

There is a new world of wonder that opens up to you when you begin to descend into the depths of the infinite riches in glory of the sovereign God who spoke this universe into existence, the God who upholds all of creation by the Word of His power, the God who has existed for all eternity never having had a beginning. When you begin to ponder the majesty of such grandeur, it takes your breath away and little else begins to matter. You begin to wonder why such a Creator would lift a finger to spare you from His impending wrath. You tremble at the fact that millions are passed over and consigned to eternal torment while you are undeservedly granted to see your need for the Savior so that you can enjoy eternal pleasures at His right hand. And you become heart broken that you don't love Him as much as you ought to because you see that He is infinitely worthy. An unseen world has been opened up to you and you now make it your aim to live here following the lead of the apostle Paul: "Therefore we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).

The soul is enlarged in experiencing the joy of the unseen world so that, as you are continually set on it, the pleasures of the seen world no longer offer appeal. They're simply not big enough. They're not powerful enough. You need something more massive, more soul-staggering, more breathtaking. Sex won't do it. Money won't do it. Television won't do it. Movies won't do it. Video games won't do it. And your heart has one cry: "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD" (Hosea 6:3).

This is my life. This is why I can't stop reading theology. I don't know any other way to press on in knowing the LORD and keep my soul enlarged than to incessantly fill my mind with glorious truths about the unsearchable depths of His character. I need to know Him. This is why I am going to Regent College for two weeks to study Puritan theology. It's because those saints of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries knew how to go hard after God. I need to be around people who hang the banner of Hosea 6:3 over their lives. Such is true of John Bunyan, John Owen, Jonathan Edwards, Richard Baxter, and company. They are precious friends to me.

I must keep my soul large because I know that the moment I stop pressing on to know the LORD is the moment my soul will shrivel down and those little lusts will begin again to seem overpowering to me. I do not for one second think that I have moved on past that and am immune. I fear being in that place again because I am not naive about the nature of my heart. Our hearts CANNOT be in neutral if we will love God. Paul says we must "fix our eyes." We must fix our hearts in a manner that is vigorous and forceful. This is active. We must never relent. We must press on because the moment we cease to do so is the moment we are "destroyed for lack of knowledge" (Hosea 4:6).

We must grow in the knowledge of our infinitely glorious God. We are not playing games. Eternity depends on it. We must strive to enter through the narrow door (Luke 13:24). Do you know Jesus this way? Do you see and savor Him? Are you captivated by His glorious countenance? Are you filled with awe at the radiance of His beauty? Are you amazed by His perfect righteousness? Are you filled with wonder that He always lives to intercede for you at every moment so that you may not sin? Is He supreme in your affections?

If you need some help with this (we all do), watch this and may the Lord in His grace by His Spirit open the eyes of your heart to see more clearly the perfect "image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15) so that the risen Christ would reign supremely not just in the universe but in your heart:

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
John 17:3

Father, enlarge our souls to be what You created them to be. Forbid that we become little sailboats that get swept up in the tide because we are having too much fun to fight. But let us be massive battleships that steer the course and continually fight because we know what is at stake. Father I plead with You to grant us the strength to press on with all that we have to know You and to do so with great joy knowing that the pursuit will never end but will always continue with ever-increasing happiness because You are infinite and we are finite. And that is why eternal life is to know You. Because we will never fully exhaust the riches of who You are no matter how hard we try. Let such impossibilities make us gloriously happy. May You be most glorified in us by making us to be most satisfied in You. Forever. And so cause us to spread a passion for Your supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. In His precious name, Amen.

Do You Really Know That God Is The LORD?

The word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men." So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded.
Ezekiel 24:15-18

Without any explanation, without any discussion, without any apologies, the LORD takes away from His servant Ezekiel the wife of his youth, the "delight of [his] eyes" (Ezekiel 24:16) in a flash, in the blink of an eye. But not only this. He, furthermore, tells Ezekiel that he is forbidden from mourning or crying (v.16). And what do the Scriptures tell us is the response of the prophet? "So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. And on the next morning I did as I was commanded" (v.18).

Say what? No questioning the motives of the Almighty? No seeking answers to imply that an explanation is necessary? No shaking his fist in the face of the Creator so as to put His goodness on trial? I am astounded by such a response! I know very little of relating to God in this way and realize that such a response says alot more than I think about the way I see and relate to the Lord of hosts. I expect God to tell me His reasons for doing what He does. I expect God to answer all of my questions (in a way that I will deem as satisfactory even though I may not admit it). I am inclined to define for myself what it means for God to be good. Where, I ask, do such expectations and inclinations come from? Is this the way the Bible teaches that I am to interact with the only wise God? According to this passage, Ezekiel doesn't interact with God in this way. Why not? What I want to know is: Why does Ezekiel respond to God's actions the way that he does? How is it possible for him to do so? In answering this question, my aim is to know if this indeed is the way I am to interact with the Almighty and how it is that I do so.

After taking away the life of Ezekiel's wife, the LORD then proceeds to instruct the prophet to tell the house of Israel that, just like He acted toward Ezekiel, He will "profane [His] sanctuary, the pride of [their] power, the delight of [their] eyes, and the yearning of [their] soul, and [their] sons and [their] daughters whom [they] left behind shall fall by the sword" (v.21). In other words, He is going to intentionally afflict and grieve the house of Israel just as He did to Ezekiel in taking away his wife, the "delight of [his] eyes" (v.16). Notice the repetition of the same phrase "delight of your eyes" in the Lord addressing Ezekiel alone (v.16) and the house of Israel (v.21). And just as Ezekiel was forbidden to weep or mourn, so is the house of Israel (v.23). In this way, Ezekiel, in the experience of losing his wife, is to be a sign for Israel in what they are about to experience. And the end goal for the house of Israel in all this is that they will know that the one who called them into covenant is the Lord GOD (v.24).

This is driven home as we see it repeated by the LORD to Ezekiel in v.27: "So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD." The parallels in v.24 and v.27 are striking:

Thus shall Ezekiel be to you a sign; according to all that he has done you shall do. When this comes, then you will know that I am the Lord God.
Ezekiel 24:24

So you will be a sign to them, and they will know that I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 24:27

Twice the LORD moves from what Ezekiel will experience to what the house of Israel will come to know. The house of Israel doesn't know something that they must know. But Ezekiel isn't included with them. Look again at v.27: "So you (Ezekiel) will be a sign to them (house of Israel), and they (house of Israel) will know that I am the LORD" (emphasis mine). The LORD addresses Ezekiel and Israel as two distinct entities because, quite simply, Ezekiel knows that He is the LORD and the house of Israel doesn't, say what they will.

Do you see that? The implications are staggering! God is, in effect, saying that Ezekiel demonstrates by his actions the knowledge of what it means that He is God, the One who is sovereign in commanding and doing what He will. Our lives look a certain way when we really know this! And they look completely different if we don't, regardless of what we may say.

The psalmist cries out: "O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth" (Psalm 8:1)! Before we can embrace God as our master who will use His infinite power on our behalf, we must acknowledge that He is Yahweh, the great "I AM", the One who eternally is and exists in perfect glory and majesty without ever figuring created beings into the picture. He is the absolute One! He is the infinitely wise and powerful One whose ways are higher than our ways and whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:9) so that we shouldn't even dare approach the throne of the Almighty without His first summoning us to His presence. Perhaps our quickness to want to enter into arguing with the One who sits on high shows that we don't know that He is the LORD.

What does it mean that God is the LORD, the great "I AM"? Moses receives that revelation in the desert:

I AM, I AM, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty...
Exodus 34:6,7

The house of Israel, in Ezekiel's day, was filled with iniquity and transgression and sin and they needed to know particularly that what it means for God to be the LORD is that He will not clear them. Were He to clear them with the knowledge of their guilt, He would cease to be the LORD. And this will never be.

Ezekiel, on the other hand, knew that the first thing it means for God to be the LORD is that He is merciful and gracious. Every blessing that he had in his life, including the delight of his eyes (his wife), was owing to free and unmerited mercy and grace so there was no way he could lay any claim to it. There's no doubt in my mind that he joined the chorus that Job sang with the words: "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21). In other words: "All that I have, the sovereign LORD has given to me though I don't deserve it. So how could I begrudge Him for taking what rightfully belongs to Him?"

But, for me, the best part of Ezekiel knowing that God is the LORD has to be that He is the God who abounds in steadfast love and faithfulness. For those who trust Him and love His sovereign throne and His infinite majesty, He will not stop loving them or demonstrating His faithfulness towards them because that is what it means for Him to be the LORD! By His own definition! Were He to cease to abound in faithfulness and dispensation of love towards those who exalt His holy name, He would cease to be the LORD! And this will never be. This is where the hope of Ezekiel must lie. Indeed, this is where the hope of all God's people must lie. As we trust Him and walk in obedience to His commands, He never ceases to pour out steadfast love and faithfulness out on us no matter how much affliction or grief we might suffer. What we must strive to learn is that, in ways that usually won't be revealed on this side of eternity, the affliction and grief is no less a part of the steadfast love and faithfulness poured out on us than the pleasures we welcome. God knows what is good better than any and He is "preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Corinthians 4:17). God never stopped being good to Ezekiel in taking his wife away. And He never stops being good to us if we truly know that He is the LORD. Oh "let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful" (Hebrews 10:23). Indeed He must be, for this is precisely what it means for Him to be the LORD!

... if we are faithless, he remains faithful -- for he cannot deny himself.
2 Timothy 2:13

Father in Heaven, help us to know what it means for You to be the LORD! We know so little. Indeed, many of us have inherited a vision of You that isn't from the Bible. In a society that exalts self, we inevitably breathe air that causes us to define You as only in relation to us. But, oh how mistaken we are. For You are the God who existed in all Your perfection before You ever set forth creation. Infinite in wisdom, infinite in power, infinite in love, infinite in happiness, infinite in faithfulness, infinite in goodness. You were all these things before we ever came into being and You didn't need us to exist in order for these attributes of Yours to make sense. So grant that we would be a people who know that divine goodness, divine faithfulness, and divine love are defined apart from us. And make us a people who have the eyes to see and know and experience these precious characteristics of Yours at all times because they are most certainly always shining. By Your grace, may You please lift us from such lowly thoughts of You to higher altitudes where we will breathe the pure, biblical air of Your resplendent majesty for all of our days! Do this for Your sake I pray. In Jesus' name, Amen!

Thank You Heavenly Father for My Earthly Father

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4

Thinking about my dad is often difficult. I am inclined to focus on all the ways I don't feel like he was the father I needed him to be during my years growing up. So it is no surprise for me to walk into the store to look for a father's day card and feel like all of the cards I browse through would be nothing more than cheap sentimentality as pertaining to my relationship with my dad.

But that's because the vast majority of the cards in the store don't highlight what the most important duty is for a father. They often describe the ideal father in terms that make him look like the best father in the world. But that's not how the Bible describes the ideal father. I now know that the most important role a man can play in his son's or daughter's life isn't to try to be the best father in the world to them, but rather to try to point them to the One who is the greatest Father in the world, the only perfect Father: our heavenly Father. In both cases, the best a human dad can do is try. Because in both cases he will always fail to do so successfully.

So I was more thankful for my sinful, imperfect earthly father on this father's day than ever for the ways that he tried to live as a pointer to my heavenly Father all of my years growing up.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father never spared me punishment when I broke the laws he set before me because now I know that there is a punishment from my heavenly Father that I dare not doubt the severity of.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father exerted authority over me and demanded respect from me so that I feared him because now I fear nothing more than disobeying my heavenly Father's will or trifling with Him as though He were someone I could talk to as a peer.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father never gave me a reason to doubt his strength or that I was protected in his presence because now I know that my heavenly Father is the ever-present, unfailing, unshakable Rock who upholds me with the saving might of His infinitely strong right hand.

I am eternally grateful that my earthly father worked unceasingly so as to provide for my every need because now I know that my heavenly Father works for me so that I will never go without.

My earthly father fell short in more ways than I could count. But by God's grace, as He so loves to do, my dad's meager five loaves and two fish were used to produce an immeasurable result in my life. I don't doubt for one second that I know who my heavenly Father is today because of the fact that I was given an earthly father who would show me something, albeit imperfect, of who He is. I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because they never heard their earthly father tell them "no". I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because their earthly father spared them the rod every time. I wonder how many of my friends don't know God as their heavenly Father because their earthly father gave them little by which to recognize Him. Oh, how good my heavenly Father was to me in giving me the earthly father that He did! Were I to have had what at times growing up would have been my own choice of an earthly father, I probably wouldn't know God as my Father today.

Thank You heavenly Father for Your immeasurable mercies that are poured out in every millisecond of my life in ways I can't comprehend. I tremble at such grace.

To Live Is Christ

My heart was encouraged and challenged as I read the following creed composed by, Jason Harms, a musical artist who attends John Piper's church in Minneapolis.  Every statement made in it embodies the heart cry of the apostle Paul when he says that to live is Christ (Philippians 1:21).  I especially delighted in #8.  I want to know what it means to embrace such a spirit and posture in all of what I do in this life.  For this man it's making music.  For some it's building houses.  For some it's teaching 1st graders.  For some it's writing computer software.  For others it's dancing or playing basketball or swinging a golf club.  How do we do all of these things to explicitly point to the infinite excellency of our Creator and away from ourselves?  How do we receive all of these gifts of ability and expression in such a way that the Giver really does get all the glory?  I want to know so as to live in such a way and bring as many with me as possible.  May the Lord teach us more fully each day how to, "whether [we] eat or drink, or whatever [we] do, do all to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31)."  Do you really know what this means?  I know I don't, but I thank God that through Jason Harms I am now a little closer.

---

AN ARTISTS' CREED

"€œFor from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen."- Romans 11:36.

God was pleased to make man, and God made man with the capacities to create. Apart from God, man would not be, nor would man have any artistic, creative ability. Therefore, to engage in any artistic expression of man as though it were apart from God, is to both dishonor God, the Author of man and of artistic expression, and to deny ourselves the full pleasures that God has intended for our enjoyment in art; culminating in our enjoyment in Him, through Jesus Christ.

So with God'€™s help and to the glory of Jesus Christ alone, as I engage with art, 

I RESOLVE:

I. To grow in the knowledge, love and enjoyment of God as I embrace God's skillful, aesthetic emanation of what God knows, loves and enjoys of Himself.
(Romans 1:19-20, John 17:25-26)

II. To pursue eyes that see as God sees as I am presented with all that He has put to image in what He created.
(Romans 1, 1 Samuel 16:7)

III. To boast only in Christ in my artistic labor since all things were created through Him and for Him, and in Christ all things hold together.
(Colossians 1:15-17, I Corinthians 4:7)

IV. To understand how, and to acknowledge that, my standing before God is exclusively dependant and grounded in Christ's work on the cross, and is in no way earned by any worthy artistic labor I engage in.
[Colossians 1:18-23].

V. To put my hope for satisfaction and provision in God alone through the work of Christ, and never rest my hope on art, audience or self.
(Deuteronomy 8:3).

VI. To pursue the joys of faithful obedience as a bondservant of Christ in all that He has called and charged me with in the arts.
(Galatians 1:10)

VII. To take pleasure in art for the sake of enjoying God; the Giver of art for my enjoyment.
(1 Timothy 6:17, Ecclesiastes 2:24-25)

VIII. To labor to artistically articulate the kind of beauty that will continue to satisfy even after my effort at the tangible representation of that beauty has long been consumed or destroyed.
(1 Timothy 6:6-7)

IX. To labor in the arts in such a way as to lay up as much treasure in heaven as the Holy Spirit enables and my faculties allow.
(Matthew 6:19-21)

X. To seek the edification of others through my artistic labors.
(Romans 12:6-8)

XI. To not bed with the creeds of sterility, mediocrity or spineless-complaisancy as they all trade the grandest joys for the quick and temporal.
[Revelation 3:15-17].

XII. To not defile myself as I study, with much discipline, the "€œliterature and language" of the arts.
[Daniel 1:4)

XIII. To discipline my body and mind towards the skills that God has bestowed upon me, and that in the strength that He gives.
(Exodus 36:1, I Corinthians 15:10)

XIV. To prize humility, as humility is more valuable and more beautiful than the most aesthetically pleasing work held in the hand of pride.
(1 Peter 5:5, Philippians 2:3, Proverbs 22:4)

XV. To seek the full pleasures to be had in art by engaging art through engaging God.
(1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Jason Harms

The Righteous Shall Live

None of the transgressions that the has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness that he has done he shall live.
Ezekiel 18:22

But when a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice ... None of the righteous deeds that he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, for them he shall die.
Ezekiel 18:24

The righteous shall live. The unrighteous shall die. It seems like an easy enough concept. For "whatever one sows, that will he also reap (Galatians 6:7)." Sowing righteousness reaps life. Sowing unrighteousness, or wickedness, reaps death. And it is our own doing. "For the righteousness that he has done he shall live (Ezekiel 18:22, italics my own)." And for "the sin he has committed, for them he shall die (Ezekiel 18:24, italics my own)."

But there is a problem. "None is righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10)." Paul here quotes the psalmist (Psalm 14:1-3, 53:1-3) in declaring the universal truth that no man is righteous. There is no man or woman conceived by two human parents who is not corrupt, who is naturally inclined to do that which is good (Psalm 14:1). The infinitely wise God knew this perfectly well when He instructed His people through the prophet Ezekiel that by their righteous they would live (18:22). God, knowing that no child of man is inherently righteous, was then either playing cruel games with His people in telling them to be something that they could never be or there was another sense in which He defined their righteousness than an inherent inclination to do good deeds.

Looking at the context of these verses in chapter eighteen of Ezekiel makes it clear that the latter is the case. In verse 22, the righteousness done by a person, by which he will live, is set against the backdrop of the transgressions that he has committed. We know this because God makes it clear that these transgressions will not "be remembered against him (18:22)." Though there is unrighteousness that he has done by which he should be condemned, it will not be counted but only the righteous deeds that he has done will be counted as the basis by which he will live. So we see that righteousness performed by a man is necessary if he is to live.

But then God sets this hypothetical man who turns from unrighteousness to righteousness against another hypothetical man who turns from righteousness to unrighteousness. This man too, just like the former, has righteous as well as unrighteous deeds that he has performed. And the difference between the two men is that, whereas the first man has his unrighteous deeds forgotten and only his righteous deeds remembered, the second has his righteous deeds forgotten and only his unrighteous deeds remembered! His unrighteous deeds that he has done will be counted as the basis by which he will die.

So then we must ask, if both men commit righteous deeds but only one lives, are righteous deeds themselves performed by a man the basis by which he lives? There is no way we can answer yes to this question because if it were so then it would surely follow that both men would live since they both perform righteous deeds, but that is not what the Scriptures say.

So what, then, is truly the basis by which a man will eternally live and not die if not the righteous deeds that he himself performs?

What will make a man turn from deeds of unrighteousness to deeds of righteousness?

What will keep a man from choosing to turn from deeds of righteousness to deeds of unrighteousness?

These are questions that we must ponder carefully and diligently. For the answers we arrive at are of eternal consequence.

Almighty Father in heaven, thank You that You are a God who has made Yourself known to us. You have made Yourself known to us primarily through Your Word and You have told us that You do not change. So grant that we would be a people who know You as You really are. May we love truth because we love You and so seek to be a people who know as much truth as is possible in this life about Your character, Your ways, and Your dealings with man by giving ourselves to unceasing, diligent study of Your Word. We don't want to be deceived and led astray so we plead with You to forbid that this would happen. But instead, by sovereign grace, would You please open our eyes to see things as they really are, to see You as You really are, and not just leave us to our own ideas of what seems to be. You alone are wise, Father, and we are foolish. So glorify Yourself in giving us the wisdom that You alone possess because the Giver gets the glory. May it always be so. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Grace

Curtis "Voice" Allen performed the following spoken word at Sovereign Grace's New Attitude Conference. It is a meditation on the infinite depths of the word "grace" that we can only begin to unfold in this life because it will take an eternity to comprehend. May this word never be taken for granted by those who have been redeemed by Christ.

Grace
Unmerited favor toward those who deserve wrath.
Unmerited favor toward those who because of sin wouldn’t desire to ask
Unmerited but given, inherited our sinning

Grace
Is salvation from predestination, Christ gave his life to change our
destination
Is good health, when we deserve bad
It is unmerited favor to those who deserve wrath.
Is good relationships with God and with others
Is the reason we call each other brothers.
Grace forgets mistakes and gives new air to breathe
It the reason we sing, we pray and we read
Grace is the warm breeze when it's cold and the cool breeze when it's hot
Grace would be everything but some things it's not

Wrath
Intense hatred for sin.
Is God righteous judgment for crime against him.
Is just as much God as Mercy, Love, and forbearance
It is Holy and Just and will make it's appearance
Is that reality we like to forget, when we lie, when we steal, when we hate
God
Is the result, of the sins of our faults becase of the fall
Is Jesus, who did nothing, who said nothing but is everything,
beaten 39 times with a whip that rips with an incredible sting
Is having a crown of thorns pressed down to your eyes
Is being innocent but yet crucified.
Is real as said in His word
Is toward those who deserve

Toward you
Do you think you do not deserve when God says judgment comes at every
careless
word?
Do you think wrath is somewhat true?
Do you realize that wrath should come after you
but yet, no, where wrath says goodbye grace says hello

Unmerited favor
You did not, you will not, ever earn
It is a gift that is free, it is a gift that is learned

Grace, grace, grace paid for my sins and brought me to life
Grace, grace, grace paid for my sins and brought me to Christ
Unmerited yet inherited, ah, grace amazing grace

Grace
Is God’s Response At Christ¹s Expense
Is God Remembers All Christ Events
Is God’s Reaction Against Creation’s enmity
Is God Relents Against Christ’s enemies
Is what the world sees but does not grasp but for us

Grace is unmerited favor toward those who deserve wrath