Faith's Review and Expectation
Keeping Christ in view is a fight, the central fight of my Christian life, and the central fight for my daily joy.
Keeping Christ in view is a fight, the central fight of my Christian life, and the central fight for my daily joy.As a young man, he fled, like Jonah, away from God and into a sea merchant’s life, where his sin could run free and unfettered.
His disdain for God kept him on water and away from churches, and his love of money lured him into the African slave trade.
But Newton’s ambition for a life “free from God” came to an abrupt end one night, when a violent North Atlantic storm slammed into his ship, and the Commander of the waves crashed into John Newton’s 22-year-old debauched life.
Death brushed close to Newton that night, so close the huge waves almost swept him off the deck and nearly swallowed his ship.
The brink of death can break thick iron chains of obstinate pride, and it did for Newton.
He would never forget this moment for the rest of his life.
God spared his life (and his ship), buoyed his soul, and shook him from his spiritual sleep and ignited new desires in his life that would culminate in his full conversion.
By amazing grace, Newton became a devout Christian.
By amazing grace, he became a devoted husband in a beautiful love story for the ages.
By amazing grace, he became one of the greatest hymn writers in history, an influential abolitionist, and a skilled pastor of souls.
By amazing grace, John Newton used the backdrop of his sin to display the magnificence of Christ.
In one letter, Newton looks back over his life and writes to a friend: “If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply upon Christ, as my peace, and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling.”
Wait, what?!
How can a man with one of history’s best-selling conversion stories wake up and forget Christ? And yet he did.
“To live is Christ” (Philippians 1:20).
He forgot it often. So do I.
This daily struggle to keep my eyes focused on Christ is not how I save myself.
My daily focus on Christ is — as it was for Newton — a reminder that my full salvation is found in Jesus. He “is able to save to theuttermost those who draw near to God through him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).
To the uttermost.
This was a precious word John Newton delighted in and studied carefully, like a diamond in his hand.
“It has an extensive meaning,” he wrote in a letter. “It includes a conquest over all difficulties, and a supply of all that is necessary. How totally, and (if possible) how often, should I have been lost, had not Jesus engaged to save to the uttermost.”
My hope is not in my ability to remember, but in Christ’s power to save.
In his letters, Newton pours image after image to make his point. Christ enlightens the most ignorant, He softens the hardest heart, He rescues the most lost, He delivers the most tempted, He comforts the most distressed, and he pardons the most guilty.
In defiance of all my sins, and my fears, and my forgetfulness, Christ saves to the uttermost.
The brilliance of Newton is seen in the ease of translating his 18th-century letters into my 21st-century life. Like Newton, I forget Christ in my life because I center my life around me.
Yet there is hope for me in Newton’s social wisdom.
Pre-Instagram Newton reminds me that Christ can save me from a soul-emptying addiction to praise and applause. Christ is more satisfying to my soul than likes and shares.
Pre-Facebook Newton reminds me that Christ is sufficient to save me from an addiction to online, click-bait controversies, curiosities, and celebrity news.
Christ alone satisfies the awe-hunger in my heart.
Newton’s words point me, over and over again, to the Savior who saves to the uttermost.
So, yes, Newton is right. The hardest part of the Christian life is keeping the eyes of our souls focused on the beauty of our Savior.
We must fight for focus in our daily lives — in worship, in prayer, in Bible-reading, and in between smartphone notifications.
Newton knew why this was all so important. Catching frequent sights of the glory of Jesus Christ is the apex of my spiritual freedom, it is the fuel for my daily joy, it is the key to all my personal growth and maturity, and it is the pathway to glory (2 Corinthians 3:16–18).
John Newton reminds me that keeping my focus on Christ is the hardest part of my life.
But Christ is worth the fight.
Christ is our life —
and His amazing grace is the sweet supply of our daily joy.
Let me tell you something my dad told me last week. He was in Brazil for 3 weeks. He goes there a couple times a year and has been for about 6 years. He takes others with him and they partner with a church in Teresina, Brazil. One night on his trip this month he and others from their group were getting ice cream at a little store. There was one other family there and a 14 year old boy named Diego came over to Dad and said "do you remember me?" in Portuguese. Dad did. The boy went on to explain that a year ago (on a previous trip) Dad told him about Jesus in a park in Teresina, maybe spent less than an hour. Diego went on to read the New Testament and is now a follower of Christ. He has been baptized and involved in the local church. God didn't have to put them in the same ice cream shop a year later when they live thousands of miles apart. But He did. He did and Dad was encouraged to continue to be faithful and share the gospel to the nations. God encouraged the boy because he said he had always hoped he would "get to see that white man again and tell him about his relationship with God". So cool. God is good. This is a sweet supply of daily joy. This is why life is worth living, seeing God's graces lavished out and because they are so good we have to share. Preaching to myself to not just know God but to acknowledge God and all His way. All day everyday.
Please pray for Brazil. Dad and others don't go there for a vacation or a check list mission trip. Dad keeps going because he has seen and heard that there are people there without basic needs but more importantly there are people there that have never even heard the name "Jesus". They don't have access to the bible and even if they did many can't read. How precious God's word is and how easily it can sit on our shelf taken for granted. Pray for the people who haven't heard. Pray for others to go and the local churches and missionaries to be mobilized in Brazil. Pray for ways to get the Word to the villages, either audio or translators teaching "how to read". Don't we want the whole world to be able to sing in their own language "Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now Im found, was blind but now I see"
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| Dad and Diego. |
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