When I Survey The Wonderous Cross, Especially While Feeling Sorry For Myself

I'm sick. I'm tired of being sick. It has thrown my entire week off. It isn't fun. I wish I never got sick.

I am having one of those nights tonight where I am profoundly aware(though still not even close to really understanding) how truly amazing my God is. It is so easy to dwell on and place blame when things go wrong, but I think that when we sit down and truly, truly think of how wretched we are, we come a realization; we deserve nothing good. But that despite the unholy and unrighteous nature of ourselves, we have a God, a perfect God, who willingly sent his son, Jesus Christ to bear what we truly deserve. To take the place, to pay the debt and to cover our sins (Romans 5:8 but(A) God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us), so that when we repent and trust in Christ as Lord and Savior, we may be looked apon as holy and righteous through the veil of Christ's blood.

It is easy to wallow in self-pity at our circumstances when we lose sight of the cross. However, when I finally allow myself to be pulled out of my temper-tantrums and look up, what I see brings me to tears. A perfect God made man, living a perfect life, deserving nothing but our adoration and worship, coming to earth, living a sinless life only to be beaten beyond recognition, humiliated and hung on a cross to die and he did that for me and for you friend (1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that(A) God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.)! We are wretches! We deserve every bit of suffering and shame that comes on us! We deserve to die and we deserve a sinners punishment in hell! Being a just God means having to serve this sentence. We can not escape it! But, Praise God, my God is also merciful and full of grace! And he has offered us a way out (Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.)

So the next time, child of the king, you (or I) sit down to pout over our circumstances, let us remember that every good thing we have, from the breath that keeps us alive to the heart beating in our chests, is only through the grace of God. And one day, when he choses to take that from us and no matter how he choses to take it, we will still glory in His perfect mercy as we worship at His feet in heaven!

Ephesians 2:4-5
But[a] God, being(A) rich in mercy,(B) because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even(C) when we were dead in our trespasses,(D) made us alive together with Christ—(E) by grace you have been saved—

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

[Added by the compilers of Hymns An­cient and Mo­dern]

To Christ, who won for sinners grace
By bitter grief and anguish sore,
Be praise from all the ransomed race
Forever and forevermore.


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