The Wretch

Friday, April 11, 2008

I saw a T-shirt the other day that I really liked. It said, "I am the wretch the song speaks of." The shirt was of course referring to the classic hymn Amazing Grace.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found, twas blind but now I see"

How true the words of the song are and how much truer the t-shirt. I have heard sermons preached about not being the kind of Christian who only wears their faith on a t-shirt. How powerful though if the words printed on this man's t-shirt are also emblazoned on his heart. I am that wretch, everyone of us at one time or another can lay claim to being that wretch.

Everyone of us has been guilty of sin. Not only that, but I dare say that at sometime everyone of us has knowingly chosen sin over what is right. You see we are all born with a sin nature. There are those that will argue with me and say that they don't believe this fact. There are those that will tell me they believe man is basically good and that if he is given the opportunity he will choose right in the face of wrong.

Here is my answer to this. A little boy or girl is born and grows up in a home that has no books, no type, no print of any kind. This child never attends school and never has anyone read them a bed time story. Will that child know how to read? The answer is no, no one taught them.

A child is born and raised in a house where no one listens to music, no one even has a radio. The child is never introduced to an instrument of any kind and certainly never sees sheet music. Will this child know how to play the piano? No, no one taught that child how to play an instrument.

A child grows up in a good home and is taught wrong from right. Mom and Dad take that child to church every Sunday and Wednesday and tell him or her that they are loved very much. The parents refrain from arguing and using profanity in the presence of the child and screen carefully what the child is exposed to. This child, like every child, is playing with another child and decides they don't want to share and they push the child away and yell mine. Why? Not because the child was taught, but because man is born with a sin nature.

People are born into this world with a natural disposition to sin. We have desires of the flesh that are contrary to our moral teachings, we wish to be glutinous even though we know it adversely affects our health, we choose to be prideful even though we know we should humble ourselves. Man is sinful.

When we sing, say, or show the world that we know we are this way but we choose to fight our nature, we choose to live in a pleasing way to honor God, we become living testaments to the love of Jesus Christ. When we say that I am that Wretch, we cease to be a people who have earned their way to heaven in the eyes of the unsaved and we begin to appear as the unworthy people we are saved by grace.

Will you join me in saying, " I am the Wretch the song speaks of"?