An old hymn at the bottom of my C.H. Spurgeon Devotional Bible caught my eye today,
When trouble like a gloomy cloud,
Has gathered thick and thundered loud,
He near my soul has always stood,
His loving-kindness, oh, how good!
Though num’rous hosts of mighty foes,
Though earth and hell my way oppose,
He safely leads my soul along,
His loving-kindness, oh, how strong!
Awake, my soul, to joyful lays,
And sing thy great Redeemer’s praise;
He justly claims a song for me,
His loving-kindness, oh, how free!
In the late 1780s, Samuel Medley wrote this hymn originally called, Awake My Soul, to Joyful Lays in 1782, later titled Loving-Kindness.
Today I find these old phrases turn my gloomy thoughts to hope in God, without even knowing the melody.
The words speak faith. My heart is hungry to receive its truth. This is eternal life for the present moment, not some future day. Eternal life is to know Jesus and His present love here and now.
When we base all our hope and trust on what we can see, our hearts fail us and we become discouraged and in despair, but God . . .
He reminds us, not one time, not two, but four times: “The just shall live by faith.”
Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:38 each remind us, “the just shall live by faith!”
Faith is believing God. Period. But how can we believe God if we don’t know Him or listen to His voice?
Where is truth today? Who can we trust?
The Bible tells us:
God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Numbers 23:19.
We have to know, today, what God has said. It’s no longer a day for “hear-say” about God. We’ve got to open the Bible for ourselves and discover Him.
A tiny letter, an epistle in the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit written by Paul the Apostle called Titus, opens rich and loaded with substance to chew on concerning God, His Word, and faith:
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth,
which accords with godliness,
in hope of eternal life,
which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began
and at the proper time manifested in his word
through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior; Titus 1:1-3.
Do these words give me an appetite to read more of what God has to say in His Word? As the hymn that caught my eye?
To fix my eyes on God’s Word and a God song, I must! We must!
“For the sake of the faith . . . and their knowledge of the truth, . . . in the hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised!”(Exclamation point, mine).
The old hymn puts God’s promise in a summary of what Jesus did for us:
He saw me ruined in the fall,
Yet loved me notwithstanding all;
He saved me from my lost estate,
His loving-kindness, oh, how great!
Jesus says in the gospels, “Follow me.”
Do I choose to follow Him? Today?
The Bible tells us, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be SAVED through Him” (John 3:17).
Do we receive Jesus’ love and forgiveness? Do I forgive myself? Can I speak back the hymn in praise to God:
He saw me ruined in the fall,
Yet loved me notwithstanding all;
He saved me from my lost estate,
His loving-kindness, oh, how great!
No matter what is going on around, can you and I look up and agree, “His loving-kindness, Oh, how great!”
And can we trust the “death of death” for you and me who believe?
Yes, let’s take comfort in the hymn, with understanding in the life we live, eternally:
Soon I shall pass the gloomy vale,
Soon all my mortal pow’rs must fail;
Oh, may my last expiring breath
His loving-kindness sing in death.
Then let me mount and soar away
To the bright world of endless day;
And sing with raptures and surprise,
His loving-kindness in the skies.
Loving-kindness, loving-kindness,
His loving-kindness in the skies.
His loving-kindness is never-ending. I share Ella and Irelyn in “Lord, I’m in Your Hands,” by Tim Weeks: