Oct 15, 2024
Nothing In My Hand I Bring
Colossians 2:6; John 1:12
“As salvation is wholly a gift and never a purchase, those coming to the Redeemer must bring nothing in their hand, and offer nothing as a price, but just come as they are; in so doing, even the most worthless will get welcome and the weariest rest.
Saints must be receivers to the very end, for, as one says, 'they are not wells, but cisterns into which the living waters flow. They are but the empty vessel; sovereign mercy puts them under the conduit pipe, and they receive grace upon grace, till they are filled to the brim.' In accepting Christ, it is not mere impersonal abstraction they
receive, but a true and living Saviour, human yet divine, who is their life and safety, their pattern and power. He is as real to them as their own flesh and bones, and infinitely dearer than brother or friend. And just because he saves them from their sins, the name Jesus is the name of names to them, and ever sounds sweetly in their ear. 'It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring,' George Herbert says; 'a song in a word, an ocean for comprehension, a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters.'”
Nothing in my hand I bring. Do you recall that old gospel hymn? “Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling, Jesus I come, I come.” I love the image of a “cistern” referenced by Macdonald above. Part of my growing up years was with a cistern that fed water to our house. We had to depend on rain from heaven to feed the cistern so we could have water. And when dry spells came, we had to carry water from a neighbor’s well. We were completely dependent on God’s mercy and grace to provide water for our daily needs. The same is true of our Christian lives. Everything depends on the continuous, flowing grace of God in Christ Jesus. Apart from that we dry up and desperate in our Christian walk. How good a “cistern” are you?
A Puritan Prayer —
“O Lord, you know my mighty sins. They have brought nothing but misery. What a mess I am in! I am sold as a slave to sin, cast out of your favor, cursed in my body, and cursed in my soul. I am cursed in my name, in my relations, and in all that I have. My soul is within a step of death.
What do I do? Where will I go? Which way will I look? Where should I flee? What place could hide me from your presence, everywhere? What could secure me from your unlimited power? Will I linger any longer like this, the way I was? No. If I waited there as I was, I would die. What then? Is there no help? No hope? None, unless I turn.
But is there any remedy for such woeful misery? Any mercy? Yes! As sure as your promise is true, God, I will have pardon and mercy—if I now genuinely, and without reservation, turn by Christ to you. So I thank you on the bended knees of my soul, O most merciful Jehovah, that your patience has waited for me. Because if I had died as I was before, I would have perished forever. And now I adore your grace, and accept the offer of your mercy.in holiness and righteousness all the days of my life. Amen. (Joseph Alleine)
(Joseph Alleine (baptised 8 April 1634 – 17 November 1668) was an English Nonconformist pastor and author of many religious works. His chief literary work was An Alarm to the Unconverted (1672), otherwise known as The Sure Guide to Heaven, which had an enormous circulation.)