Beyond Beauty

See this fallen world is wounded,
Bleeding, broken, stained and scarred.
Yet Thou knowest all our frailty
For Thy body, too, was marred

Beyond beauty, beyond grace.
This fallen world tore Thy back, Thy hands, Thy feet, Thy face.

Lost in anger, pain and sorrow,
Each wounded woman, each scarred man
Lashes out in tiger-fury
And drives each nail in Thy hand.

Beyond beauty, beyond grace
This fallen world tore Thy back, Thy hands, Thy feet, Thy face.

That first wound that grew and festered
Passed from Adam’s sin to Cain’s
Each single sin a foul rejection
Each wound a deepening, spreading stain.

Until the climax of this sickness
Cried “crucify!” in wounded rage.
The greatest wounds, the cruelest sorrow
Could heal the pain of every age.

Beyond beauty, beyond grace
This fallen world tore Thy back, Thy hands, Thy feet, Thy face.

Wounded for this world’s transgressions,
Scourged to purge away our sin
By Thy wounds our own are healed
By Thy piercing, we are sealed,
By Thy death, the cure revealed:

Beyond beauty, beyond grace
Thou rose and conquered sin and death to heal the human race.

Better Than Life

God Prevails

Lately I’ve wandered.
Lately I’ve wept;
Laid a stone for my pillow
on the ground where I slept.
Angels descended.
My lost soul they kept
so far from the home I was fleeing.

Sojourned for years in
A far distant land,
neglected by “loved ones”,
Still blessed by Your hand,
Yet in my heart’s hardness
Did not understand,
It was only Your love I was fleeing.

Now I am wrestling
Between here and there,
Afraid of Your mercy,
Yet seeking Your care.
You reach down and touch me—
My thigh and my heart:
A limp that will keep me from fleeing.

A limp to remind:
I prevail through grace.
A name to inspire me
To seek out Your face.
And when You had shown me
How helpless I was
I found no more reason for fleeing.

In a Mirror Dimly

Prayer from John 17

Jesus said, "Ask anything in My name..." Then He immediately went into an instructive prayer.

Do we want to know for what we should pray? What God desires to grant?

Check out Jesus' prayer in John 17 and start by praying to:

1. Glorify the Father (vs. 1-5)

2. Continue in God's name (vs. 6-12)

3. Have full joy in Jesus (vs. 13)

4. Be kept from the evil one (vs. 14-16)

5. Be sanctified in God's word (vs. 17-19)

6. Be unified (vs. 20-23)

7. Be with Jesus (vs. 24)

8. Love as Jesus loves (vs. 25-26)

Sunrise and Sunset

The Grace of the Lord

The grace of the Lord must be your own.
You're not saved by the faith that another has shown.
But if you should wander so far from home
The grace of the Lord can still find you.

So seek the Lord while He may be found.
Call His name while He might be near.
The humble sinner, who falls to the ground
Will find that the Lord of grace will hear.

Grace is greater than all our sin.
Grace will teach us to enter in
To the way of faith that the humble have trod.
God's grace will lead us to God.

So if you have chosen to humbly implore
God's grace and His mercy to open the door
That you might enter His rest ever more,
May the grace of our Lord be with you.