Christian Life

One of My Favorite Descriptions of the Christian Life:

I am not what I ought to be.
Ah! how imperfect and deficient.
Not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.
Not what I wish to be.
God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him.
I am not what I hope to be;
ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is.
Not what I once was,
a child of sin, and slave of the devil.


Thought not all these,


not what I ought to be,
not what I might be,
not what I wish or hope to be, and
not what once was,


I think I can truly say with the apostle,


“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

—Cited in Letters of John Newton, p. 400.