Sunday's Hymn: 'Tis Not That I Did Choose Thee

‘Tis not that I did choose thee,
For, Lord, that could not be;
This heart would still refuse thee,
Hadst thou not chosen me.
Thou from the sin that stained me
Hast cleansed and set me free;
Of old thou hast ordained me,
That I should live to thee.

‘Twas sovereign mercy called me
And taught my op’ning mind;
The world had else enthralled me,
To heavenly glories blind.
My heart owns none before thee,
For thy rich grace I thirst;
This knowing, if I love thee,
Thou must have loved me first.

—Josiah Condor 

Older tune with original words

Matthew Smith with updated words and new tune

Other hymns, worship songs, prayers, sermons excerpts, or quotes posted today:

• My Shepherd Will Supply My Need at Graces Daily
• What a Friend We Have In Jesus at The Happy Wonderer
• Come Thou Fount, Come Thou King at By Grace Alone
• Alive and full of power at Blogging Theologically
• Thorns and Roses at Tried With Fire
• There Is a Far Kingdom from Trevin Wax
• Lord’s Day 36, 2014 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Your weekly dose of Spurgeon: Turning then walking at Pyromaniacs

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list.

On Christ's Session

I posted at Out of the Ordinary this morning about Jesus’s rule at the Father’s right hand.

Theologians sometimes call Christ’s present reign his heavenly session. When a court is in session, the judge (or justices) are sitting. Christ’s session refers to his sitting at God’s right hand, the place place where he rules over creation—over (to quote the verses from Ephesians above) all other “rule and authority and power and dominion,” above “every name that is named” throughout history past and history to come. He is the master of all human authorities and all spiritual powers.

Read the rest of Jesus Is Lord.

This post is the latest in a series of posts on truths every Christian woman should know. Here are the previous posts:

1. God Has Spoken (posted at the True Woman Blog)
2. God Is Three and God Is One
3. God Is Who He Is
4. God Had a Plan
5. God Created the Universe
6. We Are Made in God’s Image
7. We Are All Sinners
8. God Saves
9. The Son Came
10. Jesus Lived and Died
11. Jesus Is Risen

Defining Holiness

Of all the attibutes of God, holiness has been the most difficult for me to get a handle on. Years ago, when I was doing a series on God’s attributes, I wrote this about holiness:

Writing about God’s attributes hasn’t been easy, but of all the attributes that I’ve written about, this one has been the most difficult, because it’s not been easy for me to to understand exactly what it means that God is holy. Is it even right to think of God’s holiness in the same way we think of the other attributes of God? It doesn’t seems to be so much one among others, but rather, God’s overarching attribute—the attribute into which all the other attributes fit.

Here’s how J. I. Packer describes the holiness of God:

God is holy, different and standing apart from us, awesome and sometimes becoming fearsome to us. Holiness is a biblical technical term signifying the God-ness of God, the combined quality of being infinite and eternal; omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient; utterly pure and just; utterly faithful to his own purposes and promises; morally perfect in all his relationships; and marvelously merciful to persons meriting the opposite of mercy. God in his holiness is greatly to be praised and worshipped for both his greatness and his goodness at all times.

Quoting from Taking God Seriously: Vital Things We Need to Know (page 26).