My Jesus I Love Thee

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;
For Thee all the follies of sin I resign;
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me,
And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree;
I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,
And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;
And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,
I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;
I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

Written in the 1800’s by William Featherstone, this song tends to read like a letter to the Lord about the author’s love for Christ.  I wanted to focus once again on love this time of year, but rather than the “Such Love” that I wrote about last week – Jesus’ love for us, I wanted to give an example of someone expressing their love to the Lord.  I wonder if Mr. Featherstone might have been an old newspaper reporter because this hymn contains all the things you need in a newspaper story – the who, what, where, when, and why that one finds in a good newspaper story:

Couple of lines in the hymn I wanted to highlight:

• “All the follies of sin I resign” – Couple of synonyms for “folly” I found in the dictionary – “imprudence, rashness, mistake, foolishness, indiscretion, injudiciousness; madness, lunacy.”  Are sins mistakes?  Yes.  Do I sin as a result of rash decision-making?  Yes.  Am I a lunatic to continue in sin?  Paul spends several chapters in Romans dealing with believers continuing in sin.  He asked the question in Romans 6 “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”  He is reminding us that as Christians, it is foolishness (or folly) to continue in sin once we have been redeemed by God’s grace.  The question for us is, will we commit, like the author of this hymn, to resign from the follies of sin in our lives?

• “As long as Thou lendest me breath” – Do you trust in God for your next breath?  To be honest, I know I should but I don’t.  I really don’t even think about.  Most people tend to take certain things for granted until they don’t have them.  We should, however, realize that God is the giver of life, and if we truly understand that He lends us breath, it would change our perspective and our daily walk.  The Bible reminds us that the “Borrower is the slave to the lender.”  This is true in financial terms as Proverbs 22:7 describes, but also should be true in our daily walk.  We owe Him everything.  Our life.  Our salvation.  And our breath.  Have we, however, become His slaves?  Slaves in the sense that Paul describes in Romans 1:1.  The Message version reads as follows ” I, Paul, am a devoted slave of Jesus Christ on assignment, authorized as an apostle to proclaim God’s words and acts.”

As you read the words to this hymn, I’m sure you caught a couple of references to dying and to heaven.  In verses 3 and 4, the author seems to be focused on that day when His life will be over and would go to be with the Lord.  To me, this is the kind of song written by someone in the later stages of their life.  They realize the days ahead of them will be fewer than the days behind.  The closer they come to that date, the more they realize the certainty of it.  That, however, was not the case with this song.  It is believed to have been written by Mr. Featherstone at the ripe old age of sixteen.  Yes, sixteen.  Since I don’t think there are too many sixteen-year-olds reading the “Hymn of the Week,” I will pick on that age group a little.  Do you know many sixteen-year-olds who could write like this?  Do you know many sixteen-year-olds with the spiritual depth to pen these kind of words?  From my perspective, most sixteen-year-olds aren’t thinking about dying or heaven.  They don’t tend to share the kind of feeling/emotion you feel when you read these words.  Sixteen-year-olds are different.  They are “invincible.”  They think they can do almost anything.  They live “in the now.”

But there is something different about this sixteen-year-old – William Featherstone.  He had a love for Christ and an understanding of what Christ did for him.  He seemed to have a spiritual depth about him.  But guess what – he too, like most sixteen-year-olds, lived “in the now.”  The last phrase in each of these verses has a focus on loving Christ right now.  Not just loving Him when he had time.  Not just loving Him on Sunday.  Not just loving Him when his schedule freed up.  He realized that if there was ever a time I can and should love Him, it was now.

This sixteen-year-old has challenged me with his words.  He has challenged me to ask – Do I love Him?  If so, do I love Him right now?  Is He the focus of my love and devotion every day?  Or am I like too many sixteen-year-olds – Infatuated with Christ, but not truly in love with Him?  As Valentine’s reminds us of love, I hope this hymn will challenge you to evaluate the depth of your love for Him.  It definitely has me.