543. Heart Hymn

I felt this hymn coming on today, so by way of taking a break from my Heroes of the Faith hymn cycle, here's an unplanned volunteer for my next collection of hymns. I reckon the "Faith and Justification" section of the book needs a little more material; I've never been particularly attentive to that topic area, apart from touching on it in hymns planned for other sections such as Sundays of the Church Year, etc. With a nod toward Ezekiel 36:26 and 2 Corinthians 3:3, here goes:

Take, Lord, from me this heart of stone,
Cold, darkened, dead and past correction;
Graft in its place a living one,
Alive to You at Your election:
A heart that sorrows for my sins
And on its crossward crawl begins.

Put, Lord, into my heart Your word,
Which shaped a world once void and formless.
Where it is sprinkled, tasted, heard,
The desert blooms and seas fall stormless,
And every part of me, remade,
In Jesus' image is arrayed.

Give me a heart, Lord, to receive
What You at Jesus' cost committed.
Draw me from doubting to believe
That, with His spotless garment fitted,
I may at last approach Your throne,
Made for Your house a living stone.

ART: By Peter van der Sluijs, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.