Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

The next entry for my Blog is Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone), which was written by Giglio Louie.  It was first released in 2006.  A link to the Chris Tomlin singing the song is at the bottom of the Blog.  The original version of Amazing Grace was written by John Newton in 1772.

Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

Amazing grace how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind, but now I see

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
And grace my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love
Amazing grace

The Lord has promised good to me
His word my hope secures
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love
Amazing grace

My chains are gone, I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love
Amazing grace

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow
The sun forbear to shine
But God, who called me here below
Will be forever mine, will be forever mine
You are forever mine

Think of a word or phrase that carries the most powerful impact on someone’s life.  I know this might be a challenging request, since there are so many great words and phrases that positively impact us in a special or powerful way.  The title of this song doesn’t necessarily stand out as the answer to my request, but when you look at the true meaning of grace; you will hopefully agree that this is one of the most powerful songs ever written.  I believe that, deep inside, we all want to be better people.  We want to be better for ourselves as well as for others.  We want to be liked, loved, and embraced as we greet other people; but what happens when we do things wrong and people can’t seem to get past our mistakes and errors in judgement?  Depending on what we may have said or what we have done, people will not let us into or back into their lives nor will they forgive or forget what we have done.  We put ourselves in a situation where we live in regret and then start trying to avoid others.  We are seemingly stuck with our past and this guilt becomes the chains that hold us back.  We want to be free, but are unsure of how to break through our bondage and move forward in our lives.

Now, let’s look at the title of this song, the word to focus on is grace.  In looking at this through the lens of Christianity, grace is defined as the unmerited favor of God.  More simply put, it is a free gift of forgiveness and mercy regardless of what we have done in our lives.   All God asks of us is to accept his son Jesus Christ as our personal savior, we then receive God’s forgiveness for every mistake we have made in our lives; past, present, and future. God’s grace is immediate.  No matter what we have done in our life, God is willing to forgive us.  People may or may not forgive our flaws, but God is the one who controls our eternity and the one who should be the most important being in our lives.  We all make mistakes, some big and some small, and we may not be leading a good life.  Maybe we got off track with our lives a long time ago and perhaps we consider ourselves as being bad or even wretched, but he loves us anyway and is willing to wrap his arms around even the most evil among us; all he asks is to put our future in his hands.  As we accept God, we start seeing the life he wants us to lead and the person he wants us to become.  We are no longer oblivious to our own wrongs and the wrongs of others around us.  God instills in us the desire to be better and to see what needs to change in our lives.  As we feel his love and his strength, we no longer have the same fear regarding what lies ahead in our lives because we know he is there to lead us, to guide us, to love us, and to pick us up when we fall.

As the chorus tells us, we have been set free from our past and present and now have hope for our future.  We are no longer encumbered by the invisible chains that have held us back from who we can be.  We can now live, love, and dream knowing that we will never be alone again and that we have a guaranteed eternal home.  God sent his only son to die on the cross for us, so we could have the bondage of our past replaced by the promises of God!  It is amazing to me that God gave up his son so each of us could have an eternal life with him.  Jesus paid the price for us with his life, the ultimate sacrifice.  God’s mercy wiped the slate clean of all wrongdoings we have had in our lives and has made us a new creation, with his promise of never-ending love.  It may be a while before people we know overlook our past, but in God’s eyes we have no past, only a future.

God promises eternity for us and that we can have a rewarding life.  It doesn’t mean we will have a perfect life, but we can have a life filled with hope knowing that we ultimately have an eternal heavenly home.  In the book of John 14:1-3, we find this promise given by Jesus as he prepared to die on the cross for us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” 

One day this world, as we know it, will be no more, the writer describes it as the earth melting away like snow.  The bible, in the book of Revelation, also tells us that the world will be replaced by a new world.  The good news is that God has already reserved our space in heaven, once we have accepted his son as our personal savior.  This is grace: the gift of eternal life.

Click to Hear Chris Tomlin Sing Amazing Grace (My Chains are Gone)

Redeemed – Entry #2 of 4

I will take a look at the following lines in this 2nd entry for Redeemed:

Then You look at this prisoner and say to me “son
Stop fighting a fight that’s already been won”
I am redeemed, You set me free
So I’ll shake off these heavy chains
And wipe away every stain now I’m not who I used to be
I am redeemed
I’m redeemed

So, as we fight through our shackles and battles to get away from the dark cloud and imprisonment that seems to hang over us, we seem to dwell on the past mistakes we made and how we could have done things differently; we fight these battles and memories day after day. Jesus offers us encouragement. The song says he reaches out to us, he doesn’t wait for us to reach out to him. He reaches out to us as being his children, in this case the writer references son merely because the writer is a male.

Jesus is aware of the shackles we have and the history behind each one. He sees us fight the battles every day and expend so much effort to try and get free of our bondage. Our Savior reminds us that he has already fought the battle for us and that as he died on the cross, all of our sins had been forgiven and that we would have eternal life with him. Jesus knew we were not strong enough to fight temptation and fight Satan, so he fought that fight for us by dying on the cross and taking away all of our sins forever. He is telling us that he has prepared our eternal home and we just need to accept him in our hearts and rely on him via the Holy Spirit to guide us in every step we take. We need to keep our focus on the future he holds for us instead of the present and past that are weighing us down.

Through Him, we are redeemed, we are saved from the bondage of sin. Jesus paid the price for our sins in exchange for our freedom, this is what being redeemed is all about. Moses, via God, freed the Israelites from physical bondage in Egypt. He and the Israelites incurred the wrath of Pharaoh, but in the end their physical bondage went away. Only Christ can free us from our self-imposed shackles.

Because of this redemption, we can shake off these heavy burdensome shackles. These shackles carry immeasurable weight, yet we are now able to not just take off the burden; we are able to shake it off. Along with the removal of these bonds, Jesus wipes away after dark spot and every deep dark recess from us and basically allows us to start anew. Every stain on our soul has been removed and, in his eyes, we are perfect since we no longer have the sin we carried. We are no longer who we used to be. Will we sin again? Absolutely. Will we have dark days? Yes we will. The difference is that we have someone we can reach out to in order to provide comfort. We have a future that no one can take away from us. We know the day is coming when we will know only pure happiness, we now have help along our journey. We are redeemed when we accept Christ.