Not What My Hands Have Done

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogV7Xpn0-3Y


I stumbled upon a worship song by artist Aaron Keyes called "Not What My Hands Have Done" that I found very profound.  Here are the lyrics:


"Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul;
not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God;
not all my prayers and sighs and tears can bear my awful load.

These guilty hands are raised, filthy rags are all I bring
And I have come to hide beneath your wings
These holy hands are raised, Washed in the fountain of your grace
And now I wear your righteousness

Thy work alone oh Christ can ease this weight of sin
Thy blood alone, oh Lamb of God, can give me peace within
Thy Love to me, oh God, not mine oh Lord to Thee
Can rid me of this dark unrest and set my Spirit free

Thy grace alone oh God to me can pardon speak
Thy power alone oh Lamb of God can this sore bondage break
No other work save thine, no other blood will do
No strength but that which is divine can bear me safely through

I praise the God of grace; I trust his truth and might
He calls me his, I call him mine, My God, my Joy, my Light
My Lord has saved my life and freely pardon gives;
I love because he first loved me, I live because he lives."


So much amazing truth contained in these lyrics.  The song really encapsulates the beauty of the gospel.  It's not what we can do that brings salvation, nor our toiling, or how we "feel".  It doesn't matter what we feel.  What matters is that all the good works we can muster will only produce guilty hands and filthy rags.  Even our "righteous acts" are filthy to God.


All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  Isaiah 64:6


So what changed?  How did we go from having guilt hands and filthy rags to having holy hands and wearing righteousness?  The work of Christ.  The blood of the Lamb.  It eases the weight of sin, gives us peace within, rids us of the darkness of our sin, and sets our spirits free.  Nothing more and nothing less than the blood and work of Christ.



For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  Romans 3:23-26