Never Lose The Wonder
October 16, 2008
Part of the effects of the Fall is that we get bored. And when the truly valuable loses its luster, we start exploring options. If the subject is grace and we get bored - then the loss is truly great. The appropriate response to grace is wonder.How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost
But now am found
Was blind
But now I see
Around the turn of the 20th century, P.T. Forsythe was a voice for orthodox faith in England as theological slippage was occurring with agonizing regularity all around him. His prophetic voice is needed now more than ever. He seemed to have a one-track mind - that the cross of Christ would not be taken for granted, or its atoning value be devalued.
"There has passed away from faith that moral amazement and awe which are inseparable from the mystery of grace. It has ceased to be to us a most strange thing that God should love, forgive, and save us."
Amazing love
How can it be?
That thou, my God
Shouldst die for me!
"And today there is only a minority of Christians whose piety takes the form of standing and overwhelming wonder that God should touch or save "me."
"We wonder at prodigies, and sensations, and a thousand things supplied to us by the news of the day. We wonder at cosmic discoveries and physical imaginations. Our wonder is plied till it is almost benumbed and we lost the power to wonder."
"But whether or no it be from a like cause - stupidity from over-feeding, or from the trivializing of grace - we have lost the power to wonder at grace. And we do not marvel, as Christ did, at the hardness of the human heart. It was the one thing unintelligible to Him. We dispute hotly about miracles, and all the time we lose the sense of marvel, because we have lost the sense of grace."
"And yet, how shall an evangelical faith or pulpit endure, how can it, if in wonder at the universe of God, it lose its wonder at the grace of God - wonder that God should think, and think to such loving, saving purpose, of small and evil me; should have sought me sorrowing, and snatched me to His joy; should have face for wicked me His own holiness and judgment; should have conquered for good and all the evil power that held me; that He should have borne my judgment, cancelled my guilt, and taken away the sin of the world?"
He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
Amazing love
How can it be?
That thou, my God
Shouldst die for me!