Dependence Day

(Originally posted on July 04, 2008)

Today as our country celebrates it’s birthday this Independence Day I am considering the nature of independence. Our country prides itself in our independence both corporately and individually. While I'm grateful for our independence and freedom I cannot help but consider our absolute incapability of independence in relation to the eternal God. We are incapable to stand on our own merits before the devastatingly just Judge. Independence will not even be a thought that will pass through our minds on that great and final Day of Judgment. In fact it will be the absolute opposite of what we, who treasure Christ, will be clinging to.

Dependence Day! That will be the shout of hope echoing through the quaking halls of our hearts as we tremble in the presence of the One before whom all things are laid bare. Dependence Day will be the cry our hearts. Our only hope to stand before this great Judge is to be blameless and this we most certainly are not. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” On that dreadful day we will know beyond knowing how severely and how incredibly often we have fallen short. Though on that day we will indeed truly behold our sinfulness we, who are hidden in Christ, will also behold more clearly than ever the magnificent love of God in Christ. To see our wretchedness, as drastically displayed by His unapproachable light, will free us from every last hope in our own independence.

I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly trust in Jesus’ Name

The glory that we behold on that day will cause our hearts more to eternally love and treasure our great Savior. Oh the unspeakable love of God that will be seen in that hour as He clothes us with the very righteousness of His Son and counts not our sinfulness against us. When He clothes us with the King’s robe, though we deserve it not, we will adoringly behold and treasure His amazing mercy. As we see the scars of the Lamb of God, who was slain on our behalf, we will begin to consider for the first time the immensity of the wrath-atoning and death-shattering power of the love of God.

Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Independence will on that day grant severe and deserved punishment for the highly treasonous crime of exchanging the glory of God for a great many things infinitely less valuable and eternally less glorious. Those who come to that Day of Judgment and have not the great high Priest to intercede on their behalf must face the immeasurable wrath of God in independence.

I am very grateful for our country's freedom and for those who have gone before us that paid a high price for America's independence. That said, I do not however, want to become enslaved to the God-less independence that so saturates our society.

We will celebrate today as Independence Day, but I will long for the magnificent revelations of the glory of God upon that infinitely greater Dependence Day.


The Solid Rock

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

—Edward Mote (1797-1874)