Xanthe Hancox

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.  Ephesians 2:4

It seems fitting to end this month’s Verse-a-Day pieces with one of the best-loved hymns of all time – Amazing Grace. The story behind one of the most recognisable songs in the English-speaking world is also, quite simply, amazing.

Born in London in 1725, John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, was pressed into service with the British Navy, but he deserted, was recaptured and flogged. After that, he worked as a slave buyer in West Africa before moving to the position of captain on the slave ships. He spent his twenties dodging every danger, toil, and snare imaginable; at one point he found himself the slave of a slave in Sierra Leone.

In March 1748, aged 23, Newton was working aboard a slave ship, the Greyhound, when a violent storm came up. He made a pact with God, survived, and started to wonder if perhaps, there wasn’t some truth to the Bible stories his mother had told him as a child.

Although Newton himself remembers that night as the moment of his conversion, the next several years were ones of slow, halting progress. He began to read the Bible, gave up gambling and drinking but he continued to work in the slave trade. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later, "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards.”

Newton eventually left slave-trading and, at the age of thirty-nine, entered the ministry. It was during his years in the ministry that he wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.

Newton became an ally of William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the African slave trade. He lived to see the British passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807, which enacted this event.

What a life! What an incredible testimony to the greatness and the constancy of God’s grace! John Newton’s life story serves as a wonderful reminder that God never gives up on us, and he never stops working in us. From the hour we first believed, we are forgiven, justified, made alive in Christ. But it doesn’t stop there –the Holy Spirit works in us, enabling us to say no to sin and yes to godliness, sanctifying us so that we may live lives that glorify God. 

Prayer:  Lord God, I cannot fully understand your grace, it truly is amazing. I do not deserve it. I pray that your grace would continue to sanctify me, teaching me how to live according to your will. Amen

You can listen to the Soweto Gospel Choir singing Amazing Grace here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJz2SANTyo