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 O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go from 1882.
O Love, that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Light, that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy, that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross, that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from Thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
It’s quite a poetic hymn, one that you probably should read and meditate on before you sing it. Otherwise, you mightn’t understand what you’re singing about 😀. But even the very first line and title says it all for me. When we repent and believe in Jesus, we are saved and safe. Like adopted children, our parents mightn’t be totally happy with our behaviour, but they won’t send us back to the orphanage. When God takes us on, we belong to Him forever. He never lets us go.
John 10:28-30
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Romans 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You do get verses in the New Testament that encourage perseverance and that might make you feel like it all depends on you. And maybe different people focus on different verses. People sometimes worry that knowing that your future in heaven in secure might make you careless. But a careless person will probably seldom think about God, so threatening them with the loss of their salvation will have little effect on them. They’re just focused on the here and now. They put God out of the picture. By contrast, people of faith are aware of God and what He requires of them. They know that they fail Him in all sorts of ways, but they also know that He loves them. And He knows that they are committed to learning and being His disciples.
When I trained to be a teacher way back in the 1980s, I might sometimes have warned the students that they might fail the exam if they didn’t work hard. But ultimately, I knew that if I was a good teacher, it was down to me to motivate them and to teach them well. And what better teacher is there than Jesus? Some choose not to be in his school. But those who commit themselves to Him know what he’ll never let go of them. They will spend eternity with their friend and brother, who is also their king.
I like the fact that on the very evening before Peter denied Him and His disciples abandoned Him, Jesus assured His disciples that He was going to prepare a place for them. And when He rose, He didn’t go off to find a more reliable group of disciples. Peter, the very one who denied Him three times, stood up on the day of Pentecost and became the most prominent name in the early days of the New Testament church. And the very people who abandoned Him were the founders of the New Testament church. There’s hope for us all!
Here are some other versions of today’s song:
Hibernia Gospel 