Andrea sang this song in Chapel today. It is one of my favorites. It is just an overwhelming thought where I would be apart from the grace of God.
Time measured out my days
Life carried me along
In my soul I yearned to follow God
But knew I’d never be so strong
I looked hard at this world
To learn how heaven could be gained
Just to end where I began
Where human effort is all in vain
Chorus
Were it not for grace
I can tell you where I’d be
Wandering down some pointless road to nowhere
With my salvation up to me
I know how that would go
The battles I would face
Forever running but losing this race
Were it not for grace
So here is all my praise
Expressed with all my heart
Offered to the Friend who took my place
And ran a course I could not start
And when He saw in full
Just how much His would cost
He still went the final mile between me and heaven
So I would not be lost
Repeat Chorus
Forever running but losing this race
Were it not for grace
Were it not for Grace lyrics
Sin
Matthew 5:29-30 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.
5″Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, 6but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[a] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Matthew18:7-9 Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
“Jesus is making claims here that violate my innate sense of what is important. My eyes, for example. Though Jesus might not literally be suggesting I maim myself by plucking out an eye, he most certainly is suggesting that avoiding sin is so important that even favorite, seemingly essential body parts pale in comparison.
Now I think that avoiding sin is important . But I’m not sure it’s that important. Which leaves me in a dilemma.
Either I am grossly overestimating how utterly terrible it would be to be drowned or I am woefully underestimating just how bad sin really is. I must have either an inflated view of my eyes or a grossly deflated view of sin.
Jesus’ working assumptions about sin collide with my own, and I am left considering the very real possibility that I believe lies about sin.”
From The Smell of Sin and the Fresh Air of Grace by Don Everts