IN this wonderful provision

Civilla Durfee Martin, born in Nova Scotia in 1866 and author of the great old hymn, "His Eye is On the Sparrow," wrote these forgotten lyrics in 1912:

1. The blood that Jesus once shed for me,
As my Redeemer, upon the tree;
The blood that setteth the prisoner free,
Will never lose its power.

Refrain
It will never lose its pow’r,
It will never lose its pow’r;
The blood that cleanses from all sin
Will never lose its power.

2. It gives us access to God on high,
From far off places it brings us nigh;
To precious blessings that never die,
It will never lose its power. [Refrain]

3. It is a shelter for rich and poor,
It is to Heaven the open door;
The sinner’s merit forevermore,
It will never lose its power. [Refrain]

4. And when with all the blood washed throng
We sing in glory redemption’s song;
We’ll pass the glorious truth along,
It has never lost its power. [Refrain]

"The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin. Don't let somebody come along and put some religious shackle around you and put on a ball and chain of guilt and shame for your failure," says Richard Jordan on his TV program.

"God Himself knew about your failure. He looked down through time, knew you were coming, knew you were going to be the failure and flop and the mess that you are, and He sent His Son to the Cross to pay for all that. To settle the account, to take away our sin and to give us His forgiveness and His life in the place of our failure.

"When you struggle to get God to be happy with you . . . I had a man write me and list two pages of stuff he's done. Read his Bible, been out passing tracts, witnessing, went off to a mission field on a mission trip. He said, 'I've done all these things and I don't feel any closer to God than before I did any of it. In fact, I feel worse than ever. I can't seem to find a way out. Can you help me?'

"What a wonderful thing to be able to say, 'Yes I can,' and point him to Christ and say:

[20] I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
[21] I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

"The issue is not who I used to be, or who I'm trying to be; the issue is who God made me in His Son. You're in this wonderful provision God has made for you in Christ. The grace of God teaches us 'that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;

[13] Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

"You look at that sin and you say, 'You have no place in my life. I've been crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed. I don't have to live in that; I'm free from it.'

Galatians 5: [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

"They don't bind me any longer. Your feelings say, 'Yes, they do.' Your faith says, 'No, they don't.' You put off the old man and put on the new man.

"You focus on who He's made you in Christ, and that's why you've got to learn to study your Bible so you can know who it is. You need to get in Paul's epistles and find out who God made you in His Son so that can be the thing that becomes the REAL identity. You live out of your identity and that can be the real identity that you live out of."

(new article tomorrow)