you can have all this world...

Yesterday at staff meeting Bruce Caroll started playing an old hymn that I haven't heard since 2007. It took me back to a moment when I was sitting on a patio one summer evening in southern Spain where I lived at the time, where me and a bunch of Americans sang this same hymn.

The words are simple but profound. The last few lines are, "When I come to die, when I come to die, oh when I come to die, give me Jesus, give me Jesus. You can have all this world, give me Jesus, give me Jesus."

I understand the lines, "When I come to die," not in a physical sense, but more an attitude of when I come to die to my self, my selfish wants and desires, when I come to surrender my life, give me Jesus instead. In essence having and knowing Jesus is more important than any other outside thing that once took precedence.

This week I have been studying 2 Corinthians 4:1-6. Verse 6 especially stuck out to me. "For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God seen in the face of Jesus Christ."

He made his light of knowing the glory of God shine into our hearts. When I think of seeing the glory of God on earth, I usually imagine him doing big and great things, drawing tons of people to himself.

And yet it says, his glory is actually seen in the face of Jesus.

Maybe I'm trying to find his glory in outside things, like my work, what I do, my feelings of okay-ness based on my merit or my productive-ness for him. And instead it's in the face of Jesus.

Often times I don't want to come and die, I don't want to surrender, I want what I want more than Jesus. I want this world more and I want Jesus less. And when I see that surface in my life, when I see my lack of love and sacrifice for others.... I see my sin and my need for his grace.

This week I've been listening to a lot of sermons by Pastor Judah Smith and he said this and it has just stuck with me all week: "Grace is more a person than a principle. Jesus is the personification of grace. He is the embodiment of grace. If you're looking for grace, if you want to learn about grace, if you want to study grace, if you want to understand grace, look to Jesus and look no further."

It's not about me and what I do or don't do or how I feel I'm doing or even having the right attitudes, its all about Jesus and what he has accomplished for me on the cross by God's grace.

And so the common thread through this song, this verse, and this quote that God has brought to the forefront of my mind and heart this week, is Jesus. Everything I need, everything I want is in Jesus. Everything I fail at and lack is covered in Jesus. He is the grace that I need and when I look to him, I see God's glory in his face. That makes me want to know him more.

And when I know him as God's Grace and God's Glory I can truly say, "You can have all this world, give me Jesus, give me Jesus."