The Gospel Primer

Beholding the heavens, I now understand

God measured them all with the breadth of His hand.

He fashioned the trillions of stars in the sky,

the sun and the moon He established on high.

All heaven and earth, which He made in six days,

Show daily and nightly His merit of praise.

So wondrously caring is God ev’ry day,

Creating, sustaining my life ev’ry way.

Each breath I intake, ev’ry beat of my heart,

All pleasures well-tasted are His to impart.

Indeed, for such blessings He should be adored

And honored supremely as eminent Lord.

In fact, for this purpose he brought me to be,

that I might his glory and kindliness see

and cherish him fully each day without end,

obeying with pleasure, my Deity friend.

This is the charge He's laid upon me

to show forth His glory deliberately

Yet I could not fail God much worse than I’ve done.

Ignoring His glory, for mine I have run.

I’ve spurned a life under His wisdom and care.

Begrudged Him the throne, and pretended me there.

A prideful and lust-laden path I have trod,

Transgressing all Ten great Commandments of God.

My foolish rebellion gives God every right

to damn me with haste to the miserable plight

of terrible judgments in his lake of fire,

where wrath is most fierce and will never expire.

With wickedest sinners I truly should know

the worst of His furies for failing God's so

So this is my status and these are my flaws

apart from Christ Jesus and his saving cause

I carry sins guilt and am gripped by sins power

held fast to its various lusts every hour

deserving of flames both within and without

and sliding toward hell as I toss about.

Too reprobate even to play a small part

in clearing my record or changing my heart

to pacify wrath and be worthy of grace

to make myself lovely and win God's embrace

completely condemned by God's law and its whole

I've nothing to offer to ransom my soul.

But wonder of wonders, so great to behold,

My God chose to save me with method so bold.

What I could not render, God fully has done,

And doing, He rendered it all through His Son.

He sent Christ to die on the cross for my sin

To suffer my anguish, my pardon to win.

Amazing it is when I stopped to regard

that God would consent to an anguish so hard

surrendering His Son unto mayhem and death

to torturous writhing till his final breath

Why does God forsake me? Alone Jesus cried

Yet God left Him hanging until He had died.

That Jesus was willing His life to lay down

be scourged and insulted and where thorny crown

for one such as I who had spited God's so

amazes and blesses and makes me to know

that greater a lover is no man than he

who lay down his life for a Sinner like me.

Now after Christ died he was placed in the tomb

which first was a grave but then served as a womb

travailing and quaking the day he was raised

and brought forth by God to be handled and praised

the first born from death on that day emerged He

with power to save to the utmost degree

At God's own right hand Christ now reigns from on high

a friend in high places to sinners who cry

to him for forgiveness their evils confessed

He gives them a pardon and then makes them blessed.

As Prince he is savior to all who believe

who come to him humbly his grace to receive.

Now when my time came and to Jesus I cried

He gave me the pardon for which I had sighed

He cleansed me completely from wrongs I had done

Released me from bondage to sins every one.

He shattered sins chains which has held me before

and thus made me free not to sin any more.

A child of the father he made me to be

and gave me the spirit as his guarantee

that being God's child I will one day obtain

A heavenly treasure that never will wane.

While in me the spirit gives power and love

and sweet premonitions of glory above.

In saving God also did justify me

accounting me righteous by his own decree

declaring me guiltless of all of my sin

and bringing his wrath against me to an end.

This wrath Christ appeased in full brunt on that tree

when bearing my sin he endured it for me

So now God relates to me only with grace –

The former wrath banished without any trace!

And each day I’m made a bit more as I should,

His grace using all things to render me good.

Yes, even in trials God’s grace abounds too

And does me the good He assigns it to do

And when I am sinning God's grace does abound

ensuring my justified status is sound.

No wrath is awakened in God at my sin

because Christ appeased it to say so again.

God's heart pulses only with passionate grace

which jealously wants me back in his embrace

So this is my story; ongoing it is.

How shall I thank God for this gospel of His?

A gift that keeps giving, the gospel confers

The bounty of heaven each time I rehearse.

Deserve it? I don’t on my holiest day;

But this is salvation, and herein I’ll stay.