The Prelude – February 18th

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Our Wandering

As we gather together to sing and worship our Great God today, the lyrics of the songs draw us in and point us to our sinful heart. Isaiah 53:6 reminds us that we are like sheep and our hearts desire to go our own ways. Even after we accept Christ into our lives, our sinful nature still pulls us to wander away from the Shepard and follow our desires. In Come Thou Fount the writer echoes this reality by pointing out his sinful, wandering heart by saying “prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” He also asks the Fountain of Every Blessing to “tune my heart to sing Thy grace.” The imagery in that is striking! Just like an instrument, we as believers get out of tune with God, due to the wandering of our hearts, and forget to praise our God who daily pours “streams of mercy never ceasing” over us. In Speak, O Lord the writer is pleading with God to fine tune us or “renew our minds.” “Teach us Lord, full obedience, holy reverence, true humility. Test our thoughts and our attitudes… cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see, Your majestic love and authority. Words of power that can never fail; let their truth prevail over unbelief.” By listing these ways that the we should be asking God to change us, it implies that we aren’t doing these. We are struggling to full obey God, to truly be humble, our faith in what our majestic God can do is weak, and we are filled with unbelief in His promises. What does God need to tune in your heart?

Trusting Our Faithful God

As we ask God to “shape and fashion us in [His] likeness,” we should be reminded to trust in the truth of God, which is shown in His Word. How many times has God proven Himself faithful and trustworthy to you before? “‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, Just to take Him at His word; Just to rest upon His promise; Just to know, Thus saith the Lord. Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him, How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er, Jesus, Jesus, Precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!”

Debtor to the Father’s Love

“O, to grace how great a debtor, daily I am constrained to be.” We owe everything to our faithful Savior! Despite our wandering, He still loves us! How Deep the Father’s Love For Us reminds us that He loved us so much “He [gave] His only son to make a wretch His treasure!” He did this despite our sin holding him on the cross and our voices mocking him on the cross where He hung for us. As believer, let us re-tune our hearts and join in praise “and sing of Him who died for [us] and hail Him as [our] matchless King through all eternity!”

 

 

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