The Solid Rock

 

Last week was tough.  It started with one friend being diagnosed with cancer and ended with another set of friends losing their sweet baby girl halfway through their pregnancy.  Life just seemed hard everywhere I turned.  Marriages struggle, jobs falter, and children stumble.  So much suffering makes my mind start to spin.  Ironically, it was our friends battling cancer that provided some much needed encouragement.  As they tried to wrap their brains around this new normal, the wife posted the words to the hymn, The Solid Rock.

1.)    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.

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

2.)     When darkness seems to hide His face, I rest on His unchanging grace.  In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.

3.)    His oath, His covenant, His blood, support in the whelming flood.  When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my Hope and Stay.

4.)    When He shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in Him be found!  Dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.

And another often unprinted verse

5.)    I trust His righteous character, His council, promise, and His power; His honor and His Name’s at stake to save me from the burning lake.

When nothing seemed to make sense, I often found myself singing, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”  And in those moments, I consciously remembered that “all other ground is sinking sand.”  I might not always know the next step to take, but I’m grateful for the reminder of where to plant my feet.

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character;

and character, hope. 

 

Now hope does not disappoint,

because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the

Holy Spirit who was given to us.