Help Us Take To Heart the Bad News

John Lafarge, "Visit of Nicodemus to Christ", 1880

“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
(John 3:1-2)

Nicodemus was an honest skeptic, a Pharisee who simply had to know who Jesus really was. When he knocked on Jesus’ door that night, I am sure that he was apprehensive, perhaps even fearful. After all, his reputation, his credibility, and his standing in society may well have been on the line that evening. But his honesty and sincerity compelled him to seek and to knock and to ask until he knew for sure the truth about Jesus.

Lord, by your grace, may we all be so compelled.^*

Help Us Take To Heart the Bad News
(So That We May Hear the Good)

May we learn from Nicodemus…
Help us seek you, Lord, at night.
Help us find You in the darkness.
Help us there to see the Light.

Help us know that we need saving…
That we must be born again.
Plant the seed of Truth, Lord, in us.
As we recognize our sin.

Help us fathom our true problem…
Yes, our bankrupt righteousness.
Help us see we’re spirit-barren,
And in Adam cursed…not blessed.

Help us understand the Message
Of John’s Gospel, Three-Eighteen.^**
Teach us of our condemnation,
Then of Christ, our Go-Between.

Help us grasp the situation…
Sow the Word…the Living Seed.
Then may new life stir within us…
True salvation, Lord, indeed!

Help us see “good works” can’t save us…
Overcome The Pharisee!
Give us hearts like Nicodemus,
Who sought Truth with honesty.

Holiness…we cannot earn it
As the Pharisees had taught.
Neither Law nor works can free us
From the snare that sin has wrought.

Help us take to heart this bad news,
So that we may hear The Good.
And then to the Cross of Calv’ry.
Where true Grace is understood!

(And for honest skeptics who may be interested, click here)

^* “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7-8)

^** “ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” (John 3:18)