Sunday's Hymn

This is one of John Newton’s hymns in Olney Hymns.

’Tis a Point I Long to Know

’Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought;
Do I love the LORD, or no?
Am I his, or am I not?

If I love, why am I thus?
Why this dull and lifeless frame?
Hardly, sure, can they be worse,
Who have never heard his name!

Could my heart so hard remain,
Prayer a task and burden prove;
Every trifle give me pain,
If I knew a Savior’s love?

When I turn my eyes within,
All is dark, and vain, and wild;
Filled with unbelief and sin,
Can I deem myself a child?

If I pray, or hear, or read,
Sin is mixed with all I do;
You that love the LORD indeed,
Tell me, Is it thus with you?

Yet I mourn my stubborn will,
Find my sin, a grief, and thrall;
Should I grieve for what I feel,
If I did not love at all?

Could I joy his saints to meet,
Choose the ways I once abhorred,
Find, at times, the promise sweet,
If I did not love the LORD?

Lord decide the doubtful case!
Thou who art thy people’s sun;
Shine upon thy work of grace,
If it be indeed begun.

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

• Lord’s Day 38, 2009 at The Thirsty Theologian
• From the Cross to the Crown at The Happy Wonderer
• O Lord, How Are My Foes Increased! at Fieldstone Cottage
• Divine Promises from The Valley of Vision at The Upward Call
• Jesus With Thy Church Abide at Hiraeth
• Your Weekly Dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: Doubt Is A Deadly Poison
• O God of Bethel, By Whose Hand at Whatever Things
• Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee at Tapestry of Graces

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 emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

Saturday's Old Photo

This is one of the Saturday’s Old Photo posts from the old blog. The old post lost its photo when my son closed his Smugmug account, so tonight I’m uploading the photo here and reposting the text that went with it. I chose this piece to repost because it gives background for the old photo I plan to post next week.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you who this little person is, but I will anyway. This is me when I was around 18 months old. This photo was taken by a photographer for the yearbook at Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee. My dad was a student there and this picture was taken for use in the photo spread on Trailerville, where all the married students and their families lived. I don’t think this actually made it into the yearbook, but it did make it into my family’s collection of photographs.

You’ll notice I’m playing with a slinky, which I suppose was the latest thing back then. That I have a slinkly rather than a stuffed animal tells you a bit about what kind of toys I liked. I had a doll—one with outfits my grandma and mother made—but I didn’t play with her much. I tried to play with her, but after I’d changed her clothes, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I preferred cars and trucks and building blocks—things you could use to do something or make something.

When I was school age I mentioned to my parents that I remembered how much I’d loved playing with my toy 7-Up truck—the one with the little crates of pop that could be loaded in the back.

“Seven-Up truck?” they said. “You didn’t have a 7-Up truck.” It turns out that my first toy memory is of a toy that wasn’t mine, but belonged to a boy who was my neighbor for six weeks when I was two.

This slinky isn’t mine either, but belongs to one of the other Trailerville kids.

Imputation for Kids—and Grownups, Too

From Big Truths for Young Hearts by Bruce Ware:

Like a play that moves the story forward through its series of Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3, the salvation story of the Bible moves the plan of salvation forward through three acts.

In Act 1, Adam sins in the garden, eating the forbidden fruit, so that his sin is charged not only to him but also to all who have come from Adam (Romans 5:12-19) Just like if you used your dad’s credit card to buy something, charging the expense to him, so God charges us with the sin of Adam. In so doing, this brings to Adam and to us both the stain and bondage of sin in our inner lives and the guilts of sin before a holy God.

Act 2 involves God the Father taking all of that sin—both the sin we received from Adam and all of our own sin—and charging that sin to Christ. As we’ve thought about earlier, when Jesus died on the cross, he bore our sin and took the punishment that we deserved. Even though he was sinless and innocent of any wrongdoing, yet for our salvation, God the Father put our sin on his Son and satisfied his own just wrath against our sin through his Son’s death. As Paul states, “For our sake he [God the Father] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin” 2 Corinthians 5:21a).

Act 3 is crucial to the story of salvation, and it involves God the Father now crediting us with the righteousness of his own Son when we put our faith solely in Christ. To credit means to add something positive that increases the value from what was true before. When you deposit money into a savings account, you credit the account by the amount of that deposit, making the account more valuable than it was previously. God does this with sinners who turn to Christ in faith. At the moment that they trust Christ alone for the forgiveness of all of their sins and the only hope they have of receiving eternal life, he credits them with the righteousness of his own Son. The remainder of 2 Corinthians 5:21 makes this point. The whole verse reads, “For our sake he [God the Father] made him [Christ] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

What do you think? At what age would a child be able to understand this explanation?