I wrote the lyrics to this song in 2019. Wanting to find a way to express the relief I experienced after being confronted with the message of God's grace, this song was born. For a long time in my Christian experience or perhaps at the time it should have been called more accurately, my “experience of religion”, I had thought what God wanted from my life was to impress Him and prove that I was deserving of His love, that I was worthy to carry His name and be called one of His children. But of course, that path could never take me far enough. There was always something more required. It proved to be far more than I was able or willing to give. Little did I know that the only destination of a performance-based relationship with God is failure. I came to a crisis point in my faith where I could only see God as frustrated, fed up, and disappointed in me. I was sick of my relationship with God and just wanted to ignore it. I hated the fact that no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep Him happy. It made me angry and I hated Him for what seemed to me to be His incessant demands and obligations. Were it not for grace, I most certainly would have walked away. And I guess in a sense I did walk away. But I was walking away from dead works and my own religious pride. As grace began to change my whole perception of God, I no longer saw Him as a distant, unimpressed taskmaster. It began to warm my calloused heart to see Him as a Father and His gracious heart toward me. My perspective shifted from, "I messed up, Dad's gonna kill me" to "I messed up, I need to call Dad". These days, I am more aware than ever of my own weakness and the ways I continually fall short of His glory. Fightings within and fears without.... but instead of that driving me away into despair, I can hear His voice in the silence, in the pain, in my weakness, drawing me close to His heart saying, "Come to me all you who are weak and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest". A well-known preacher once said in a sermon to his congregation, "Those who see God as angry and disappointed do not see Him rightly. To see God in faith is to look upon His friendly heart.” To see Christ rightly is to see Him as a Substitute, to see Him as the One who takes my place. Not only in bearing the punishment I deserved but also in living the life I should have lived and carrying out the obedience to God's commands which I failed to carry out. And to know He did this not only up to a certain point but once and for all time. He didn’t simply wipe away my past and give me a new chance to do better in the future. He took my past upon Himself and also became my future. Christ truly is my First and my Last, He is my Future and my Past. He saves completely, as Scripture says….. "to the uttermost". What He wants from us is to receive from His fulness. This glorious Good News shines down through corridors of history and continues to echo through all generations in every heart that believes. To see Jesus as merely my example brought no relief to my troubled soul. But to see God the Father as a fountain of supply giving Christ the Son as the One who would step into my emptiness and fill every gap, every place of coming up short with His perfect record and call it mine. Well, that makes my soul want to sing!
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This is an audio recording of a message I preached from Luke 18 at Gracelife Church on November 29th, 2020
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from John 4 at Gracelife Church on March 1st, 2020
….And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” -Rev 4:6-11 The Apostle Peter’s final exhortation to the church in his second epistle was that they would grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord. Paul the apostle prayed similarly for the Ephesians that they would have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and depth and height and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. The truth is, an eternity will not be long enough to plumb the depths of the beauty, wonder and greatness of God. Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and His ways past finding out. For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been His counselor? Or who has given to Him that he might be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever! In the passage above we read of John’s vision of the Throne in Heaven. He sees living creatures full of eyes all around and within. Think of that, eyes all around and within! What are eyes for? What function do they serve. With eyes we can perceive. With eyes we have the capacity to see, to take in, to gain knowledge of something. Think about all we can perceive with our eyes. We only have two of them. The living creatures around the throne are full of eyes around and within. Imagine the great intelligence of these creatures; the massive capacity they have to search out what they are looking at. With eyes all around and within looking at something you would think it wouldn’t be long before there would be nothing more to see here. The wonder, the beauty, the amazement would wear off fairly quickly. But these creatures, day and night, never cease to say, “Holy holy holy, is the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come. How deep and unending can God’s presence and glory be that creatures with capacity far beyond anything we could ever hope to come close to are captivated day and night, filled with wonder and awe at the greatness of God. We would melt in that degree of glory. Moses asked to see His glory and He said no man can see My face and live. But there is a place where we can receive the light of the knowledge of the glory of God. That place is in the face of Jesus Christ. When the eyes of our faith are upon Christ we can see the glory of God. He said to Moses I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my Name “the Lord”. I will put you in a cleft of the rock while my glory passes before you. That “ split rock" was a type of Christ. My prayer for myself and you as fellow believers is……. that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might….. -Amen This is an audio recording of a message I preached from John 10 at Gracelife Church on July 15th, 2018
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from Isaiah 53 at GraceLife Church on June 12th, 2016
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from Galatians 5:1-2 at GraceLife Church on August 9th, 2015
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from Galatians 3:15-19 at GraceLife Church on March 15, 2015
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 14 at GraceLife Church on July 20, 2014
This is an audio recording of a message I preached from the Gospel of Mark Chapter 9 at GraceLife Church on Nov 17, 2013
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CategoriesAuthorNate Carey is a worship leader, musician and music teacher. My passion is Jesus Christ! My life has been and is continuing to be transformed by the power of the Gospel and my aim is to influence as many people as the Lord allows me with the message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified! Thank you for visiting. Archives
November 2023
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