Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
Not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.
Your voice alone, O Lord, can speak to me of grace;
Your power alone, O Son of God, can all my sin erase.
No other work but Yours, no other blood will do;
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through.
Thy work alone, O Christ, can ease this weight of sin;
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.
Thy love to me, O God, not mine, O Lord, to Thee,
Can rid me of this dark unrest, And set my spirit free.
I bless the Christ of God; I rest on love divine;
And with unfaltering lip and heart I call this Savior mine.
His cross dispels each doubt; I bury in His tomb
Each thought of unbelief and fear, each lingering shade of gloom.
I praise the God of grace; I trust His truth and might;
He calls me His, I call Him mine, My God, my joy and light.
’Tis He Who saveth me, and freely pardon gives;
I love because He loveth me, I live because He lives.
H. Bonar
All religions in the world, except for authentic Gospel Christianity, states that what you do determines your outcome. Their motivation to get you to obey and be moral is the law. Do this, do that and as a result you will get a good outcome. God Himself says this in the Scriptures, “Do this and live,” but He also says that we are unable to fulfill His law (Romans 8). The law is a burden, a weight that no one can successfully and perfectly uphold because of our sinfulness. It has morally incapacitated us. Christianity is totally the opposite though of every other religion. When Paul writes to various churches in the New Testament, there is a specific way in which He directs them on how to live their lives in accordance with the law. Instead of starting out his letters right out of the gate with law, “Do this, do that, to please me and please God,” he starts out his letters packed with theology, packed with the mercy of God to undeserving sinners. For the longest time when I was in high school and read his letters, I did not quite understand what he was doing. It seemed he started out his letters with no common theme other than speaking about the inner workings of God and salvation. It appeared so convoluted and confusing … that is until I saw the purpose of doing this. Instead of motivating his readers to walk in a manner God demands by trying to rouse their wills, that they may set their wills against sin and obey the law (which as Romans 8 clearly points out, in the flesh we are unable to do anything of worth or value before God), he rather starts out with the wonders of the work of Christ, the nature of God, His characteristics, how we were saved, etc.