Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
My Dry and Empty Barren Soul
“I can feelingly say, he has proved himself stronger than I and his
goodness superior to all my unworthiness. He tells me (and enables me
to believe it) that I am fair, and there is no spot in me. Though an
enemy, he calls me his friend; though a traitor, a child; though a
beggared prodigal, he clothes me with the best robe and has put a ring
of endless love and mercy on my hand. And though I am sorely distressed
by spiritual and internal foes, afflicted, tormented and bowed down
almost to death with the sense of my own present barrenness, ingratitude
and proneness to evil, he secretly shows me his bleeding wounds and
softly and powerfully whispers to my soul, ‘I am thy great salvation.’
His free distinguishing grace is the bottom on which is fixed the rest
of my poor weary tempted soul. On this I ground my hope, often times
when unsupported by any other evidence, save only the Spirit of adoption
received from him. When my dry and empty barren soul is parched with
thirst, he kindly bids me come to him and drink my fill at the
fountainhead. In a word, he empowers me to say with experiential
evidence, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ Amen and
amen.”
Joseph Hart (1712-1768), quoted in Peter C. Rae, “Joseph Hart and His Hymns,” Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology 6 (1988): 22-23.
My dry and empty barren soul
is a post from: Ray Ortlund
My dry and empty barren soul
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