Olive Tree One Year Daily Devotional

Our Righteousness in Christ

Topic: Salvation

Romans 3:21-26

Jehovah Tsidekenu (“The Lord Our Righteousness”)

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,

Jehovah Tsidkenu 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

Jehovah Tsidkenu 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

Jehovah Tsidkenu - '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,

Jehovah Tsidkenu 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,

Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,

Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne'er can be lost;

In thee I shall conquer by flood and by field,

My cable, my anchor, my breastplate 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,

Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.

- November 18, 1834.

From The M’Cheyne Sermons by Robert Murray M’Cheyne