Before you go any further in reading this article, please stop. Go to You Tube and type in Matt Redman, “Mercy.” Listen closely to the words. Be energized by the music. And then ask yourself: “Am I continually in awe of the wonder of God’s mercy towards me, hell-deserving sinner that I am?” Continue reading . . .

Before you go any further in reading this article, please stop. Go to You Tube and type in Matt Redman, “Mercy.” Listen closely to the words. Be energized by the music. And then ask yourself: “Am I continually in awe of the wonder of God’s mercy towards me, hell-deserving sinner that I am?” Here are the lyrics.

“I will kneel in the dust at the foot of the cross
Where mercy paid for me
Where the wrath I deserve, it is gone, it has passed
Your blood has hidden me.

Mercy, mercy, as endless as the sea
I'll sing Your hallelujah, for all eternity.

We will lift up the cup and the bread we will break
Remembering Your love,
We were fallen from grace but You took all our shame
And nailed it to a cross

May I never lose the wonder, O the wonder of Your mercy,
May I sing Your hallelujah, hallelujah, A-men!”

Has life snuffed out in your heart the fire of wonder at God’s mercy? Has the pressure of just making it one day at a time caused you to lose sight of the unimaginable depths and indescribable heights of divine mercy to a sinner such as you are? Have the banal, mundane, and often perverted images and sounds of TV, the Internet, Twitter, e-mail, Hollywood films, and Facebook dulled your heart to the majesty of God’s mercy in Jesus Christ?

I’m often reminded of the words of Rodney "Gipsy" Smith, who died in 1947. Smith was a British evangelist who conducted evangelistic campaigns in the United States and Great Britain for over 70 years. He was an early member of the Salvation Army and a contemporary of Fanny Crosby and G. Campbell Morgan.

Although we may not find his theology or his evangelistic methods altogether acceptable, there is something he once said that I urge you to consider.

A man once approached him after an evangelistic campaign and said, “I heard you speak 50 years ago and the Lord used your message to bring me to faith in Jesus Christ. But I have to ask: ‘How have you kept going for so long? You’ve been faithfully pursuing ministry for more than a half a century. How have you found the strength and incentive to persevere?’”

After a momentary pause, Smith replied: “I never lost awe for the wonder of it all.”

My prayer for you and for myself is that we never lose our awe for the wonder of it all. I pray that the Spirit of God will sustain and preserve in our hearts an ever-increasing wonder for the majesty of God and the depths of his saving mercy. I pray that the Spirit of God will intensify and deepen in our hearts an unceasing wonder for the grace of the cross, the centrality of Christ, and the ever-expanding joy of heaven in the ages to come. May our fascination and excitement and awe for the wonder of God’s mercy never end!