Sunday's Hymn: God of My Life, to Thee I Call

or Looking Upwards in a Storm, Cowper’s original title.

God of my life, to Thee I call, 
Afflicted at Thy feet I fall; 
When the great water-floods prevail, 
Leave not my trembling heart to fail! 

Friend of the friendless and the faint, 
Where should I lodge my deep complaint, 
Where but with Thee, whose open door 
Invites the helpless and the poor! 

Did ever mourner plead with Thee, 
And Thou refuse the mourner’s plea? 
Does not the word still fix’d remain, 
That none shall seek Thy face in vain? 

That were a grief I could not bear, 
Didst Thou not hear and answer prayer: 
But a prayer-hearing, answering God 
Supports me under every load. 

Fair is the lot that’s cast for me; 
I have an Advocate with Thee; 
They whom the world caresses most 
Have no such privilege to boast. 

Poor though I am, despised, forgot, 
Yet God, my God, forgets me not: 
And he is safe, and must succeed, 
For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead. 

—William Cowper

HT: Kim Shay

Red Mountain Music has put these old words to another new tune.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• The Perfect Wisdom of our God at By Grace Alone
• All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name! at Graces Daily
• Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days at The Happy Wonderer
• Smitten, Stricken, and Afflicted at Luma Simms
• My Love and Happiness at Tried With Fire
• Lord’s Day 11, 2014 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Lifting Up Our Hearts - 20 at The Upward Call
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: “We are coming, brethren!”
• The Treasury of David: Psalm 18:31 at Theology for Girls

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.

Thankful Thursday

Tonight I’m thankful 

• for life — one more year of it.
• for beets and fudgesicles, two foods I’ve been liking lately.
• for daylight in the evenings. 
• that it’s warm enough to sleep with my bedroom window open a crack. I sleep so much better when I’m breathing a little fresh air.
• for this week’s visits from family.
• for the “one act of righteousness [that] leads to justification and life … . “

What are you thankful for?

For the Faith Community

Here’s Romans 3:24-25:

 … and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (ESV).

And now, from Jonathan Gibson’s essay on definite atonement in the Pauline epistles in From Heaven He Came and Sought Her: Definite Atonement in Historical, Biblical, Theological, and Pastoral Perspective, commentary on this passage, which Gibson says, “usually goes under the radar … ” when it comes to lists of passages that support definite atonement:

In this passage, Paul spotlights God’s justice in presenting Christ as a propitiation. The propitiatory atonement of Christ vindicates God’s justice, retrospectively and prospectively (vv. 25-26). With respect to the past, Paul states that God’s punishment of sin at the cross justifies his passing over sins previously committed (v. 25). But whose sins? … The faith community of the old covenant is surely in view, since Paul goes on to speak of God’s justice at the present time in justifying those who have faith in Jesus — the faith community of the new covenant. Indeed, in Romans 4, to bolster his argument for justification by faith alone, Paul speaks of the forgiveness of Abraham and David on the basis of their faith, both of whose sins were definitely passed over until they were punished in Christ. If the “former sins” to have a universal reference, then one has to ask what Christ’s propitiatory death accomplished for the sins of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, for example. It makes more sense to understand the “former sins” to be those of the OT faith community, and thus, in this regard, the atonement that Christ offered already had a particular focus. It seems reasonable, then that it would also have a definite reference in the “present time.”

Previously posted quotes from this book.

• Someone for Some People
• Death Is the Penalty
• Election Is the Spring
• Election Circumscribes the Atonement