After a couple of crazy months, I finally have the time and motivation to post again! One of the things that kept me busy was planning and leading worship at my church a couple of weeks when our regular worship leader was out of town.
On the day we started a new series from the book of Jude on contending for the faith, I had the congregation say the Nicene creed (see this post) followed immediately by this hymn. At first glance that combination may seem odd, considering the first two lines of the hymn say “My faith has found a resting place, Not in device or creed.” But here’s what I told the congregation:
I grew up in a church that said the Nicene Creed probably every other week, and I think I saw it as a part of a ritual I was relying on to make me right with God. After I came to trust Christ to give me a right relationship with God through His death on the cross, I had a really negative opinion of religious ritual. But since then I’ve learned some things about the Nicene Creed that have made me appreciate it more. It is a statement of faith hammered out by the early church during a time of heresy, and now I see it as a way to publicly declare my faith in the one true God.
Even though this hymn was written many centuries later, and in a more emotional style, it too is a public declaration of faith in the one true God.
My faith has found a resting place,
Not in device or creed;
I trust the ever living One,
His wounds for me shall plead.Refrain:
I need no other argument,
I need no other plea,
It is enough that Jesus died,
And that He died for me.Enough for me that Jesus saves,
This ends my fear and doubt;
A sinful soul I come to Him,
He’ll never cast me out.
(Refrain)My heart is leaning on the Word,
The living Word of God,
Salvation by my Savior’s Name,
Salvation through His blood.
(Refrain)My great Physician heals the sick,
The lost He came to save;
For me His precious blood He shed,
For me His life He gave.
(Refrain)– Eliza Edmunds Hewitt (1851-1920), under the pseudonym of Lidie H. Edmunds