That One Thing

There is a worship song that was popular a few years back called One Thing. It’s a song that I generally like, but I always tease my wife when she is singing it. The song opens by saying, “one thing I ask” and then the chorus goes on to list about five different things. And so I tease my wife by counting on my fingers as she sings through the list.

The bridge does the same thing. “All of life comes down to just one thing…and that’s to know you oh Jesus and to make you known”. So the guy asks five things when he says he’s only asking for one thing and all of life comes down to one thing that is actually two things.

Math.

Actually, I get what the artist is doing in this song. There are times when one thing is actually a bunch of things. This is what John Newton said to Thomas Scott when he told him that he “lacked one thing”; namely, a relationship with Jesus. But Scott didn’t get it and was a bit offended by his suggestion of “one thing”. Perhaps he annoyingly counted, just like I do with my wife. But Newton’s response is, as typical, brilliant:

I limited my expression to one thing, because it is our Lord’s expression, and because that one thing includes many.

Newton understood that all of his work with Scott really came down to one thing. Apart from this one thing happening all of his labor would be in vain. No reasoning would be able to penetrate a stone cold dead heart. Thought it might be the means God used to awaken Scott’s heart. And so on every occasion Newton pressed on this one thing.

The casual reader can pick up that Scott starts to get a bit agitated and frustrated that Newton is only talking about this one thing. Scott sees the issues between them as being multi-faceted. And they are. But Newton understands that until they are looking and embracing the same multi-faceted diamond they really only have one massive difference. One man is regenerate and the other is not.

And this really is where we find ourselves when we are engaging with unbelievers on all sorts of issues. They cannot see the world through the eyes of believers unless they are believers. And to this end they’ll never understand what it is like to have a new heart. And we can “no more describe to those who have not experienced it, than I could describe the taste of a pine-apple to a person who had never seen one.”

Our job is hard but thanks to the Lord it is not impossible. Impossible with us, but absolutely possible with the sovereign Lord. Let us, then, follow Newton in humbly allowing ourselves to be made instruments in the redeemers hands. And as such let us constantly be pressing for that one thing necessary. It is in the Lord’s hands. So let us plead with Him for it and let us labor with the belief that God really does change hearts. He gives that One Thing.

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