In this play-acting age of Christianity, closeness to God is not what we see portrayed on the stages in most of the local Christian “theaters” attended each Sunday morning.
John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, who referred to himself before his conversion as “the old blaspheming African slave-trader,” had it right when he wrote the following:
John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace, who referred to himself before his conversion as “the old blaspheming African slave-trader,” had it right when he wrote the following:
I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of his salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face.
‘Twas He Who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.
I thought in some favored hour
At once He’d answer my request
And by His love’s constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.
Instead of that, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart,
And bade the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part.
Nay, more, with His own hand he seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe.
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.
“Lord, why is this?” I trembling cried.
“Wilt thou pursue this worm to death?”
“This is the way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”
“These inward trials I employ
From self and sin to set thee free
And cross they schemes of earthly joy,
That thou might’st find thy all in Me.”
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