When I think about hymns I rarely link them up with my own testimony, but when I encountered "I Once Was a Stranger", I did just that. Though it is not a song that we regularly hear in church, it is a powerful song speaking to the work of Jesus in our lives.
I believe that there are many who have occupied seats in their local congregations for some time, but who may not really know Jesus. I did. How easy it is to intellectually know the Bible, to understand when to say and do certain things, even to feel genuinely grieved as the passion play is presented on Resurrection Sunday. I spent most of my life attending various churches. I went to Sunday school and Bible camp, memorized scripture, sang the songs, and bought the t-shirt. I truly believed that I was saved and on the road to heaven. I actually believed that I didn't have any sin. I can remember going to camp one year and thinking that I didn't have a testimony because I had always been good and that there was nothing God really had to save me from. In retrospect I see my own youthful ignorance and wonder about the some of the youth of today.
As an adult, my eyes were opened to the grace of God. Just like the writer of the hymn, it was as if my world was flipped upside down. Everything that I had believed over the years became real. Christ was not just part of my religion, but was my Saviour and my life. I was taken by the realization that I was nothing without Him, that He did not need me, rather He wanted me to be with Him. It was grace that awoke me from my religious slumber.
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I ONCE WAS A STRANGER
I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree,
Jesus the Saviour was nothing to me.
I oft read with pleasure, to sooth or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page;
But e’en when they pictured the blood sprinkled tree
Jesus the Saviour seemed nothing to me.
Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over His soul;
Yet thought not that my sins had nailed to the tree
Jesus the Saviour ’twas nothing to me.
When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see—
Jesus my Saviour, my Saviour must be.
My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life giving and free—
Jesus my Saviour is all things to me.
Jesus my Saviour! My treasure and boast,
Jesus my Saviour! I ne’er can be lost;
In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,
My cable, my anchor, my breast-plate and shield!
Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath;
For while from life’s fever
My God sets me free, Jesus my Saviour, my death song shall be.