Beloved,
The shorter catechism famously describes God as “infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth.”
The last two weeks we have fixed our eyes upon God’s infinity and eternity, and this Sunday we will gaze upon His immutability (i.e., God is unchangeable). Seeing that I sensing my temporal limitations in an acute way this week, I thought I would pause from our email series on God-exalting leadership and share with you one of my favorite quotes from John Newton (who I will be referencing in Sunday’s sermon). It is a quote that demonstrates how unlike God we are – finite, temporal, mutable – and yet how gloriously gracious God is to us in the gospel!
Newton wrote, “I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be! I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality: and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was – a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the Apostle, and acknowledge: By the grace of God I am what I am!”
Amen?
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick
