Showing posts with label nail-scarred hands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nail-scarred hands. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

How To Know What Love Is...


1 John 3:16-20

This is how we know what love is: 
Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
 And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need
 but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth 
and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 
20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, 
and he knows everything.

(version 1)




When through ancient age/page we travel
When our hearts are wholly gripped
As we trace and humbly marvel
And embrace redemption’s script
As the grace that wrought salvation
Stuns us with love’s magnitude
Mercy’s divine transformation
Turns despair to gratitude

Draws the heart, no longer hardened
(Though this world with horrors groans)
To the cross where sin is pardoned
To the One whose death atones
All who come without excuses
All who repent and believe
Not one sinner, He refuses
His forgiveness to receive

Look! Behold Hope’s holy horror
At Love’s body, bathed in blood
At the Healer’s Hands, nail-burrowed
From Him spews redemption’s flood
Hark! He cries, by all forsaken
Behold! Now He bows His head
Look! He dies, the skies are shaken
As the graves give up their dead

But Death was a fated rival
I AM no grave could constrain
Jesus Christ arose triumphal
Over sin and death; amen
This is how we know what love is
Jesus Christ laid down his life
Love does not forget its promise
Wrought through Heaven's sacrifice

This is joy; to be forgiven
Love's broken body, life’s bread
Where, still through all earth from Heaven
Runs redemption’s scarlet thread
This is hope’s unflinching anchor
Though time’s troubled tempests roll
Hallelujah what a Savior
This is faith that makes us whole
Hallelujah, what a Savior
Jesus, Savior of the soul


© Janet Martin



Monday, October 19, 2020

Resounding Praise for Abounding Love

Psalm 103:1
The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 
he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 
as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

Psalm 130:3-4
If you, Lord, kept a record of sins,
Lord, who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you.



May our outlook always be an up-look!
The scenery changes with the season...




but never the Reason of hope!


The valley of reflection can feel cold and dark and wet 
It steals the light of laughter if we linger there too long 
The weight of condemnation can crush us with sad regret 
If we forget that God forgives and helps us carry on 

This is the day that He has made to look ahead, not back 
To walk upon the stepping-stones we stumbled on before 
To be aware of what we have in spite of all we lack 
God’s grace always sufficient for whatever lies in store 

Futile to dwell where we can never alter what is done 
Better to focus on the mercy of this present morn 
For He forgives the sinner through the merit of his Son 
As far as east is from the west, man’s transgression is borne 

Then when the deceiver attempts to drag us to a pit 
Of doubt and dark despair remember He who loves us so 
His kindness and compassion do not recount our debt 
But only sees the perfect grace He grants whereby we go 

His love abounds and metes the grounds for peace and happiness 
If we ask he will give and if we seek him we will find 
He is faithful and just and forgives us if we confess 
Then pray we live to love him with heart, soul and strength and mind 

For HE IS, WAS and WILL BE faithful, changeless, GREAT I AM
Ah, what is man that God is mindful of mortal at all
And yet for man He gave His Son to be the slaughtered Lamb
And save all who believe from that which sin conceived; the fall

Therefore no valley of despair is deep or dark enough
To hide us from the One who sees exactly where we are
For nothing can separate us from His abounding love
Ah, look! the hand that holds us bears love's signature, a scar

© Janet Martin

Monday, March 19, 2018

Tear-worthy


 My sister Marlene and I were talking about how hard it is to read Easter-themed pieces without tears!
(and that makes it hard to volunteer to read at an Easter Service:)
But, we concluded, they are worthy tears...
Jesus shed tears for us.
Oh, pray we shed tears for Him!

(a few more favorite Easter Songs)


Tears...
Stirred by the wounds You wore, my Lord and bore on my behalf
Because I was part of the crowd; Loud, proud, I jeered-leered-laughed

While You in gruesome horror hung in grueling agony
‘Til the last breath of life was wrung from You, my Lord, for me

You groaned beneath the thorny crown pressed hard upon Your head
Where death’s deliverance poured down until the ground was red

…and though I’ve wept, “Lord, I belief, now help my unbelief”
And though I love you, oh my Lord, of sinners I am chief

…for oft-times I’m still such a jerk and blind, as blind can be
More dedicated to my work and play, my Lord, than Thee

And then I weep, Jesus, I weep ; You knew the full extent
Of promises I would not keep, still, to the cross You went

And staggered up the skull-strewn slope beneath the awful weight
Not of the wooden cross-hewn Hope, but of ignorant hate

“Forgive them for they do not know” oh Lord, my Lord, You cried
As we slammed nails into your hands and spears into your side

And though wrongly accused, My Lord you answered not a word
But naked, torn and bruised You bore the sins of the whole world

...stirred by the scars You wear my Lord, because of Calvary
Where now Heaven is my reward through what You did for me

...so then I weep; without You I’m unworthy to the core
..But, because of You someday I will live forevermore

© Janet Martin

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Beneath It All



In life’s uncertainties,

when I close my eyes

and envision His nail-scarred hands

beneath each situation

it helps me trust…



Beneath the ebb and flow of hold-let-go, the stilly sweep
Of moments, days and years that pass into that long, last deep
Beneath Uncertainty and all we cannot know or see
The hands that bore the nails abide to carry you and me

I want for naught but to remember what I easily forget
That, though I have no answers God, our God is faithful yet
Beneath life’s laughter-tear-faith-fear Unknown I'm glad to know
The hands that bore the nails abide and never let us go

© Janet Martin