Your steadfast love, Oh Lord, is better than life
You have told us this in many ways. With these very words you have said it through the mouth of your servant, David: "Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you." You have said it in the words of your apostle Paul, when he cried out in prison, "My desire is to depart from you and be with Christ, for that is far better." You are so much better than life that your apostle says death is gain. "To live is Christ, and to die is gain." To lose everything this world can offer and be left with you alone is gain.
Oh what a grand design! To make our joy the echo of you excellence. To make our pleasure proof that you now hold the place of Treasure in our lives. To make the gladness of our souls the essence of our worship, and the mirror of Your worth. To make Yourself most glorified in us, Oh god, when we are satisfied in You. How could I, Lord, have ever been so blind to think that being loved by you means making much of me and not Yourself? How could I put my eye to some great telescope, designed to make me glad with visions of the galaxies, and notice in the glass a dim relfection of my face and say, "Now I am happy, I am loved"? How could I stand before the setting sun, between the mountain range and the vastness of the sea, and think that everlasting joy should come from making much of me?
No Father, love is this: At great expense You made Yourself my glory and my boast. The cost was infinite by which you made Yourself the Treasure of my life. You sent Your Son, the blazing center of Your beauty and Your love. You game Him up to mockery, betrayal, thorns, the whip, the rod, te fists, the nails, the shame, and death. For what? To swallow up Your wrath, and satisfy Your righteousness, and bury all my sins as far as the east is from the west and in the deepest sea, so that I might come home and see the galaxy. This is your love, oh God, not to make much of me, but do whatever must be done so that I waken to the joy of making much of you through all eternity.
How then shall Christ not be my only boast! Not only that He bought Yourself for me, Oh God, but Himself is your perfect image and the blazing center of Your radiance. What do I have that does not come from Him? What gift of life or breath? What promise ever made did not receive its Yes in HIm? What one sweet thing-- or hard thing you will soon make sweet-- did I receive except that it was purchased by his blood? Not one thing I deserve, but Hell. Yet everything is mine in Him, and by his sacrifice alone, O God, forbid that I should ever boast save in the cross of Christ, My Lord!
Oh what a grand design! To make our joy the echo of you excellence. To make our pleasure proof that you now hold the place of Treasure in our lives. To make the gladness of our souls the essence of our worship, and the mirror of Your worth. To make Yourself most glorified in us, Oh god, when we are satisfied in You. How could I, Lord, have ever been so blind to think that being loved by you means making much of me and not Yourself? How could I put my eye to some great telescope, designed to make me glad with visions of the galaxies, and notice in the glass a dim relfection of my face and say, "Now I am happy, I am loved"? How could I stand before the setting sun, between the mountain range and the vastness of the sea, and think that everlasting joy should come from making much of me?
No Father, love is this: At great expense You made Yourself my glory and my boast. The cost was infinite by which you made Yourself the Treasure of my life. You sent Your Son, the blazing center of Your beauty and Your love. You game Him up to mockery, betrayal, thorns, the whip, the rod, te fists, the nails, the shame, and death. For what? To swallow up Your wrath, and satisfy Your righteousness, and bury all my sins as far as the east is from the west and in the deepest sea, so that I might come home and see the galaxy. This is your love, oh God, not to make much of me, but do whatever must be done so that I waken to the joy of making much of you through all eternity.
How then shall Christ not be my only boast! Not only that He bought Yourself for me, Oh God, but Himself is your perfect image and the blazing center of Your radiance. What do I have that does not come from Him? What gift of life or breath? What promise ever made did not receive its Yes in HIm? What one sweet thing-- or hard thing you will soon make sweet-- did I receive except that it was purchased by his blood? Not one thing I deserve, but Hell. Yet everything is mine in Him, and by his sacrifice alone, O God, forbid that I should ever boast save in the cross of Christ, My Lord!