He Looked Beyond My Faults

“Amazing grace shall always be my song of praise

For it was grace that taught my heart to fear,

I do not know just why He came to love me so

He looked beyond my faults and saw my need.

I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary

To view the cross on which my Jesus died

How marvelous the grace that caught my falling soul

He looked beyond my faults and saw my needs.”

There are some songs though they were song ages ago continue to make a deep and lasting impression on our spiritual makeup. Today this song which precedes this article has been ringing in my heart; it is one of those songs that stirs up in my heart a gratitude to God for having reached down into my chaos and confusion years ago and gave me a brand new life. Nothing owed or earned, strictly out of God’s deep love for you and I provided a means by which He could receive us back to Himself and at the same time satisfy the requirements of the law which demanded that we pay with our life for the sins we committed; what an  amazing love.

For any of us who have walked any length of time on’ terra firma’ you know firsthand what each human being  on this planet faces in terms of hardships and suffering some much more than others. The emotional trauma we pickup and carry with us over the years is not from some nebulous undefined entity or impersonal force, it is rather pain and distress we inflict on one another some unknowingly and sad to say at times some intentionally.

Although we may have been well raised with a good moral foundation, we may even be saved, born again, yet there is a darker side to us that surprises us at times as to how low and far we can go in ‘pursuing’ some of our baser instincts. I believe being enslaved to our baser instincts would be a more accurate way of putting it.

Here’s an example, you’re in traffic and in fact it’s backed up for miles , your running late and as you are idling by the minutes in your car ,other drivers begin to drive up the shoulder and cutting in a long way ahead of you, all the while you’re   still sitting still. Where are our thoughts going to at this point? How about while we are at work we say something stupid, we did not put a lot of thought into our comment and now we are the blunt of the jokes and the pokes for the next long while ridiculing us for such a dumb remark, or even labelled as a dumb person. How do we react, do we get hurt and offended? Well if we are human we probably do, the question is, how far and how long do we allow that revolving recording of what we said and how others reacted to play itself in our minds before we put a stop to it.   Oh yes we are human, we get hurt, we feel the rejection and the pain, the comments made about us, we replay different ways we should have, could have, reacted but we did not.

At times in our pain we lash out, and in the same insensitive ways we give it back if not in words at least in our minds as we ‘roast’ individuals over a barrage of caustic words made to reduce them to mere worms groveling at our feet on the floor. For the moment that sense of power and superiority reigns supreme at least in our minds. We can go on to enumerate many more areas of our fallen ‘human’ condition that drives the bus at times while we sit helplessly by allowing ourselves to be taken down the road to places where we really do not want to go. We nurse our pain and ‘feel’ unable to resume control of the steering wheel as we indulge ourselves in some sinful exercise trying to find relief of our hurt.

This little scenario should in one way or another describe everyone. This is the Romans 7   tug of war of our thought life until either our baser carnal natures emerge victorious or our ‘spirit man’ takes the high ground in a triumphant breakthrough over the dark side.

It is at this juncture that we must come to the conclusion as Paul did that no good thing dwells within me. Left to ourselves we will display on a regular basis some very sour, nasty and even despicable behaviour, that’s who we are without Christ, period! Without Christ we are left with very limited resources to draw from, and if we just add a set of rules of do’s and don’ts  to the mix without some divine aid we are only adding futility to an already hopeless and frustrating  human condition.

Will power alone can take us down the field only so far, but it will never remove or deliver us from our internal ‘demons’ that have tormented our minds and have enchained our thoughts and emotions as far back as we can remember. Family sins passed down from generation to generation in areas of prejudices, racism, incest,  alcoholism and abuses of every kind that have devastated individuals and families thinking  that they had no one to turn to in their moments and years of torment and injury. Who is there that will understand all our pain and woundedness and be able to bring the healing we so desperately long for without bringing more harm and devastation to the family.

The world is not willing to ‘bow’ its knee to Christ at the moment, although we all shall at some point in the future. Our fallen state can have only one Saviour all other roads of self help are very limited in their ability to deliver us or alleviate our pain. When our hearts ache deep inside, when our minds find no peace or rest, when our emotions erupt like volcanoes and we spew out over friends and family  lava of scathing words wounding and crushing others with the same pain we are feeling, what will we do? Who shall we turn to?

The drugs, the alcohol, the sex and the hundred and one other so called escapes routes we may have found may provide a temporary solace to deaden the pain of our empty broken lives. Even on the other side of the coin, in helping others or being a good person doing all the ‘right’ and good things will in time leave us empty and confused.

Religion has been blamed for a great many things, looked upon as a crutch for weak people, and who could deny such a charge. We are all weak people if we really get judgement day honest about the inner workings of our lives.

I believe that we all have had or are about to have our ‘Damascus road’ encounter along our life’s journey. We may have ‘fluffed’ it off as a low moment in life where our emotions may have gotten the best of us we tell ourselves or whatever other lies we tell ourselves to convince our hearts that this Jesus thing is just a mind game for weak people.

However we just can’t seem to run far enough or fast enough to completely escape this inward tug that keeps telling us we may have missed a life changing moment. We need not be surprised that when we are in a low moment or season we sense this need to look beyond ourselves for help that we know we cannot generate. It is at this juncture that we are most likely to finally admit, at least to ourselves that we do not have the answer here; I need help not just any help not even human professional help, some of us may have had all the earthly help available but to no use. We need someone who can reach deep down inside and stop the pain or give us wisdom to know just what to do in this mess I find myself in.

Only Jesus can reach the deep recesses of our minds and hearts and bring the life changing power to break chains of bondages where we despaired that we would ever be free. Healing for rejection and abuse so embedded that we could not even articulate the pain and chaos in our minds to explain it to another human being and add to that all the guilt and shame.

But; our help comes from the Lord the Maker of heaven and earth. The One who knows me best loves me most, even with all my needs and faults. You see it is not the presence of sin that is my undoing; it is the absence of Jesus Christ.

Yes, God looks beyond my faults, my sins, my terrible attitude and sees my desperate needs, my need for Him and the wonderful part is that He not only sees it He is willing and able to come to us and make the miraculous changes in us if we just ask Him to.

Calvary was the place Jesus took His cross (my cross) and was put to death as a substitute for each one of us; we may have heard that story a thousand times however it can only be made real and personal the moment we acknowledge our need to Him and for Him. Only as we allow Him to enter the guarded sanctuary of our hearts, only then can He bring the change we need.

The grace of God is so amazing that it thoroughly transformed a sinful person such as me and brought peace, life and renewed hope where there was only emptiness and darkness.

Jesus will do the same for you no matter what your state of being is like, whether you know Christ as your Savior or you are just hearing about Him for the first time, open up your heart and unload the burdens of your life on Him no matter how big or how dark, He can handle it. He will take your pain and anguish and put a new song in your heart, a song of hope with a bright future,  a song that will lift you above your present circumstances until the change comes and forever after. He is there to walk with you, a close friend to be there at any and every moment for you, why not turn to Him now, you will be glad you did.

How marvelous that grace that caught my falling soul, I shall forever lift my eyes to Calvary where Jesus died in my place, yes ’amazing grace’, shall be my song of praise forever!