Skip to content ↓

Answer to ‘Tis a Point

Tis a Point I Long to Know

A short time ago I shared a beautiful little poem by John Newton: ‘Tis a Point I Long to Know. In that poem Newton professes the universal experience of the Christian in our searching, our wondering, our perplexity, and, eventually, our confidence. After I posted it, I learned that a friend of Newton’s penned a poetic response titled “Answer to ‘Tis a Point.”” I hope you’ll read it (aloud!) and be encouraged by it.

What is this point you long to know,
methinks I hear you say, ’tis this –
I want to know I’m born of God,
an heir of everlasting bliss.

Is this the point you long to know?
The point is settled in my view –
for if you want to love your God,
it proves He first loved you.

I want to know Christ died for me,
I want to feel the seal within;
I want to know Christ’s precious blood,
was shed to wash away my sin.

I want to feel more love to Christ,
I want more liberty in prayer;
but when I looked within my heart,
it almost drives me to despair.

I want a mind more firmly fixed,
on Christ, my everlasting Head;
I want to feel my soul alive,
and not so barren and so dead.

I want more faith, a stronger faith,
I want to feel it’s power within;
I want to feel more love to God,
I want to feel less love to sin.

I want to live above the world,
and count it all but trash and toys;
I want more tokens of God’s grace,
some foretaste of eternal joys.

I want – I know not what I want,
I want that real, special good;
yet all my wants are summed up here,
I want to love! I want my God!

Is this the point you long to know?
The dead can neither feel nor see;
it is the slave that’s bound in chains,
that knows the worth of liberty.

So where a want like this is found,
I think I may be bold to say:
that God has fixed within thy heart,
what hell can never take away.

However small thy grace appears,
there’s plenty in thy Living Head;
these wants you feel, my Christian friend,
were never found amongst the dead.


  • A La Carte Thursday 1

    A La Carte (October 24)

    A La Carte: Barnabas Piper’s gratitude for his dad / When eyewitnesses disagree / How endorsements work / God’s gift of musical memory / Receiving critique / Book and Kindle deals.

  • Moving House and Moving Church

    Would It Be Better to Take a Pay Cut Than a Church Cut?

    There are times when circumstances dictate that we move—that we move from one town to another, one province or state to another, or even one country or continent to another. There are other times when it is desire more than circumstance that causes us to uproot ourselves from one location and re-root ourselves in another.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (October 23)

    A La Carte: How to write a meaningful card / God brings us bad to give us best / New notebook, same mission / There but for the grace of God go I / The trouble with competitiveness / and more.

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (October 22)

    A La Carte: John Piper on future judgment / Is every sin the same in God’s eyes? / The long defeat of history / Common marketplace leadership sayings / Infertility and grief / Kindle deals / and more.

  • Bad Seed

    Are You Scattering Bad Seed?

    It was an unconscionable crime—grossly immoral and terribly destructive. In the middle of the night, he snuck onto the property of one of his enemies and ruined his crop. Knowing that this man had recently sowed good seed throughout his fields, he stealthily followed behind and sowed seeds he knew would spring up into weeds,…

  • A La Carte Collection cover image

    A La Carte (October 21)

    A La Carte: A good death? / Every tree tells stories / Managing a household well / The formation of writers / Why young women are leaving the church / Francis Schaeffer / and more.