Our Hearts of Stone (Renewing Our Hearts This Easter Week 1)
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The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9, ESV
You only pray when you want something from God. We should live a life of prayer without ceasing, as Paul puts it in I Thessalonians 5:16-17.
You find yourself able to live easily with unrepentant sin. Sin should make us so uncomfortable, we aren’t satisfied until we’re on our knees before the cross confessing to Jesus.
You might not be familiar with this Latin hymn translated by Englishman Francis Pott in 1861, but “The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done” is a wonderful example of how we are continually being made new through Christ’s work on the cross. As Albert Bailey puts it in The Gospel of Hymns, “The words present the theological statement that the Crucifixion was a contest between Christ and the devil’s legions, in which Christ won. This is proved by the fact that Christ did not stay dead.”
The strife is o’er, the battle done;
The victory of life is won;
The song of triumph has begun.
Alleluia!
The pow’rs of death have done their worst,
But Christ their legions hath dispersed;
Let shouts of holy joy outburst.
Alleluia!
The three sad days have quickly sped,
He rises glorious from the dead:
All glory to our risen Head!
Alleluia!
He closed the yawning gates of hell;
The bars from heav’n’s high portals fell:
Let hymns of praise his triumphs tell.
Alleluia!
Lord, by the stripes which wounded thee,
From death’s dread sting thy servants free,
That we may live and sing to thee.
Alleluia!
Next week, we’ll dive into “Our Need for Renewal.”
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Yevheniia Bondarieva
