I will sing to the Lord as long as I live.
….I will praise my God to my last breath!
May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
….for I rejoice in the Lord. Psalm 104:33-34 NLT

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Most people, churched or not, would recognize the old hymn “Amazing Grace” – throw in some bagpipes and a few more might remember it! Some might know that its author was John Newton. Living from 1725 to 1807, he was a converted slave trader, preacher, and hymn-writer. Although he had worked as a ship’s captain in the slave trade and later an investor in the same trade, he came into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ becoming a prominent supporter of abolitionism – eventually living to see the British Empire’s abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death (according to Wikipedia).

This evening as I was searching for a song to write about and post, I came across one that was inspired by a letter Newton wrote to a “Dear friend” on March 18, 1767. The inspirational passage is as follows:

Are not you amazed sometimes that you should have so much as a hope, that, poor and needy as you are, the Lord thinketh of you? But let not all you feel discourage you. For if our Physician is almighty, our disease cannot be desperate and if He casts none out that come to Him, why should you fear?

Our sins are many, but His mercies are more: our sins are great, but His righteousness is greater: we are weak, but He is power. Most of our complaints are owing to unbelief, and the remainder of a legal spirit. And these evils are not removed in a day.  — John Newton

Matt Papa’s modern hymn, “His Mercy Is More”, co-written with Matt Boswell, is the result of Newton’s inspiration.

I will say no more, but I’ve included the text with a beautiful rendition of the song as sung by the Praise and Harmony Singers. Let its words speak to you as it did to me.

What love could remember
No wrongs we have done
Omniscient, all-knowing
He counts not their sum
Thrown into a sea
Without bottom or shore
Our sins they are many
His mercy is more

REFRAIN
…Praise the Lord
…His mercy is more
…Stronger than darkness
…New every morn’
…Our sins they are many
…His mercy is more

What patience would wait
As we constantly roam
What Father so tender
Is calling us home
He welcomes the weakest
The vilest, the poor
Our sins they are many
His mercy is more

REFRAIN

What riches of kindness
He lavished on us
His blood was the payment
His life was the cost
We stood ‘neath a debt
We could never afford
And our sins they are many
His mercy is more

REFRAIN
…Praise the Lord
…His mercy is more
…Stronger than darkness
…New every morn’
…Our sins they are many
…His mercy is more

REFRAIN

Our sins they are many
His mercy is more

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… 1 Peter 1:3 NIV

June 15th, 2022, Wed, 8:50 pm