John Newton's Description of the Christian Life

I love this quote, copied/pasted from Justin Taylor's blog:

I am not what I ought to be.
Ah! how imperfect and deficient.

Not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.

Not what I wish to be.
God, who knows my heart, knows I wish to be like him.

I am not what I hope to be;
ere long to drop this clay tabernacle, to be like him and see him as He is.

Not what I once was,
a child of sin, and slave of the devil.

Though not all these,

not what I ought to be,
not what I might be,
not what I wish or hope to be, and
not what once was,

I think I can truly say with the apostle,

“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

—Cited in Letters of John Newton, p. 400.