We wake. We put on a face. We present ourselves all together and lovely. God alone knows the heart of man.
Oh, how sad, and sick and full of sin, is the human heart that lies within.
So, we grow in circumstance and receive education, but the viper’s poison still remains, even when it imparts no sting. Our hearts are dark within.
The sin of one man destroyed us all. (2) Adam, in the beginning, in the fall. But grace is as a great blot of ink, because the thought of blood is hard to think … yes, grace blots out and covers in full. The blood of the Lamb, shed to cleanse mankind all – red, brown, yellow, black, and white – The name of Jesus makes ‘crimson’, white as snow.(3)
It all sounds like ‘religious stuff’ but in fact it’s knowledge that leads to hope. It’s words written on a page of history forever, for all eternity changed.
“We were lost, but we are found,” reads a song of hope in Spurgeon’s poem,
“Dead, but now alive are we;” the poem reads in simplicity.
“Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God:” (3)
“As by the offence of one, judgement came to all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one came the free gift upon all men unto justification.” (Romans 5:18, almost too good to believe!)
“Dead, but now alive are we;” We were sore in bondage bound, But our Jesus sets us free.”
“Strangers, and he takes us in, Naked, he becomes our dress. Sick, and he from stain of sin, Cleanses with his righteousness.” These are words of a Spurgeon poem, that lead the way to peace and home.
Where is home? Where is home? Sometimes it’s hard to understand and know. God help us to shed the dark heart within, that we might have a new countenance, outside … and first, in.
Give me back a smile upon my face in knowing that You love me and have given me grace. O God, restore me again and give me inner joy. Lift up Your countenance on me Lord, let it be evident on my face.
Then I will say aloud the words on the page, as if they are my own, from my own heart the same:
“Therefore will I sing his praise, Who his lost ones hath restored, Hearts and voices both shall raise
Hallelujahs to the Lord.”
May my countenance be changed moment by moment, breath by breath, as I seek the Lord and His righteousness. There is no righteousness in me, except in believing that He IS HE! Today, today let my prayer be, and old Spurgeon poem written just for me:
“Lord, from anger purge my heart, Bid all enmity depart; New-created from above, Let my very life be love.
Quench in me each evil fire, Envious thought or false desire. Flame from heaven upon me fall! Love of God be all in all!” (5)
(1) Jeremiah 17:9-10, (NLT) “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked.
Who really knows how bad it is?
10 But I, the Lord, search all hearts
and examine secret motives.
I give all people their due rewards,
according to what their actions deserve.”
(2) Romans 5:15, “But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”
(3) Isaiah 1:18, “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
(4) Romans 5:18, “ Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
(5) Spurgeon’s Devotional Bible pg. 8,10.