Behind His Shield

June 18

The beautiful words of John Newton in the beloved hymn, AMAZING GRACE, stir our hearts with hope and peace and security, “…’tis grace that brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.” Newton had every reason to anticipate hell as his eternal abode. He had been a drunken slave trader whose cruelty was boundless.

But when he found Jesus as his Savior, his life was transformed. As vile as he had been, to the degree he’d been reprobate, to that degree and more he became devoted to the Lord who rescued him from depravity and set him aright on the path of life.

Like John Newton, we, too have allowed ourselves to become stained with sin. Oh, we may not pillage villages and capture people for trafficking in slavery, but our sins are just as vile in God’s eyes as were Newton’s. God’s standard of sin is not incremented by degrees. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Romans 3:23, is God’s definitive word in the matter.

We, then, like John Newton, may hold fast to the word found in Proverbs 2:7-8 which says, “God holds victory in store for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk blameless; He guards the course of the just and protects the way of His faithful ones.” “Though our sins be scarlet, they will be white as snow,” Isaiah 1:18, but because of Jesus, we, like the vilest of sinners, may walk clean behind His shield of blamelessness.