I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the old hymns.
Today’s song is Who Can Cheer the Heart Like Jesus from 1931.
Who can cheer the heart like Jesus
By His presence all divine
True and tender, pure and precious
O, how blest to call Him mine
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
Love of Christ so freely given
Grace of God beyond degree
Mercy higher than the heavens
Deeper than the deepest sea
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
By the crystal flowing river
With the ransomed I will sing
And forever and forever
Praise and glorify the King
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
All that thrills my soul is Jesus
He is more than life to me
And the fairest of ten thousand
In my blessed Lord I see
I see it as an old hymn, but perhaps some of my older church friends in the early 1980s might have seen it as modern. Nowadays, I sometimes speak of “new choruses” that I used to sing back in the 1980s, but they’re as old now as this one was back in 1980 😀.
So, can I sincerely say that “All that thrills my soul is Jesus”? When I reflect on it all, Yes. All sorts of things in life bring me happiness, but that’s all from Jesus too. He is behind everything that was created.
John 1:1-3 and 14
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made….14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
And we have Satan to thank for all that’s wrong with the world – Satan and any aspect of ourselves that wants to put God out of the picture:
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
I have Jesus to thank for everything, most of all for dying on the cross to save me. But my soul isn’t always thrilled, and that’s because I don’t think about Jesus enough. It’s years since I sung this hymn. It’s largely forgotten in modern churches, but looking at it today, I almost feel like I wanna sing it every morning.
Here are some other performances of the song that I managed to find.
Hibernia Gospel 