Love Constrained to Obedience

I normally post an excerpt from a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon, but my reading this week brought this hymn by William Cowper (1731-1800) to mind. This is very good news indeed.

No strength of nature can suffice

To serve the Lord aright:

And what she has she misapplies,

For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay

In bondage and distress;

I toil'd the precept to obey,

But toil'd without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin

Was more than I could do;

Now, if I feel its power within,

I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done

A righteousness to raise;

Now, freely chosen in the Son,

I freely choose His ways.

"What shall I do," was then the word,

"That I may worthier grow?"

"What shall I render to the Lord?"

Is my inquiry now.

To see the law by Christ fulfilled

And hear His pardoning voice,

Changes a slave into a child,

And duty into choice.

Photo credit: Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Dülmen, Göversheide -- 2015 -- 7718-22” / CC BY-SA 4.0