Can it be?

     I don't feel especially inspired with words/thoughts that have been planted in and need to explode out of me or just flow, tumbling one after another onto the page.  Last week I asked my mother in law what her favorite hymn was.  She said "And Can It Be...this week.:)" I can relate to that.  God gives us different words and songs for different seasons.  I share in the author's sensation of being astounded again at a love like this, so great a Salvation.  The Gospel story, our essential story that should still cause our jaws to drop, our hearts to race, our eyes to water as we're caught up in the magnificence of the thought that since sin broke our connection to Heaven, God brought heaven down to us and restored that connection, purchasing it with His divine blood.  Amazing love!
   We have been given a gift, a great favor that causes the angels who see the very face of God to wonder, tremble and be in awe of.  They see all our failures, our weaknesses and struggles - they who do His every bidding and come and go at His command - can't quite figure out the tenderness, the GRAND AFFECTION, the heart throb of the Father, the EYES with which He sees Himself unfolding within us - the drive that would compel the One, the Omnipotent to sacrifice Himself for such vessels of weakness made for glory. Really?  And I can't figure it out either but expect to be blown away at the intricacy and wonder of it all at the great wedding feast when His grand story culminates in all His intents and purposes.  I get chills just thinking of how Awesome and Revelatory that will be! Can it be? Is this for Real?  We get to live out the Gospel and the power of the Living God and see His glory manifest on the earth through the Holy Spirit living, moving, loving in and through us.

And Can It Be? or Amazing Love
And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?                          
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Refrain:
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?


’Tis myst’ry all: th’ Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above—
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For, O my God, it found out me!


Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’ eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.


Story behind the hymn: http://hymnswelove.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-of-amazing-love-and-can-it-be.html

Good listening:
https://youtu.be/YLu7GrKhsiI
traditional by Japanese Jerusalem choir

https://youtu.be/pL0ICsRLKYs