O The Precious Love of Jesus -- Eliza Morgan Sherman

 

She lived in small-town late 19^th Century America, and evidently had felt, seen, and heard something proclaimed and lived out in a church and a home that reinforced a simple, loving trust in Him. Could it be that Eliza Morgan Sherman had been taught to love Jesus Christ for so long, that by 1880 it was quite natural for her to sing “O, the Precious Love of Jesus” (also known as “Christ Is Precious”)? The very words she penned around her 30^th year most likely were those her parents had on their lips, too. Brodhead, Wisconsin (See the Seal of Wisconsin here; Brodhead sits astride the border of Green and Rock counties on the southern Wisconsin-northern Illinois border) and probably the Congregational Church where this family worshipped were small, but the Christian faith values she encountered there were evidently deeply embedded within Eliza. The basic message about God – that He is love (1 John 4:8), and that that character trait of Him is so very valuable – was not lost on this young woman.    

 

Eliza had sensed the love of God in boundless ways, perhaps even with the other two senses not yet mentioned (tasting and smelling), for it is evident in what she wrote that this divine nature was something that encompassed her life. ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ (Psalm 34:8), and ‘taste the love of Jesus’ (v.3 of the song), Eliza coaxed, evidently as she drew on what her ancient ancestor-songwriter David had said about having God’s sweetness on the tongue. Had Eliza also read Psalm 141:2, wherein David loved God – indeed, perhaps enjoyed a mutual sensation with Him – through the aroma of incense that was present as he lifted up a prayer of devotion to Him? Was that analogous to her last three lines in verse 3, where Eliza indicates there’s a prayer offered to the One above, upon whom ‘burdens’ are laid, because He is ‘trust(ed) with…grief and sorrow’, and someone toward whom a ‘joyful song’ (is borne) ‘away’, like incense? She vocalizes the word love three times, once for each of her three stanzas, but the poetic offshoots of love include many other words to describe its breadth – like precious, sweeter, joyous, and melody (v.1); and fullness, wondrous, glory, heavenly home (v.2). All of these are traced to Christ – employed 12 times in her poetry -- the name for the Anointed One of God to whom she points. Eliza managed to say quite a lot about this God of love with just a handful of words.

 

What do you suppose Eliza did with all of that love that she experienced in Brodhead? Without specific evidence to confirm how Eliza Sherman’s life played out day-to-day, including what particular episode might have spurred her poetry about this love of Jesus, we could surmise that what took place there stuck with her – and that she stuck with Brodhead in reply. The little available information about her, in addition to the verses of some 80 songs that she wrote, indicate her father (James) was a deacon in a Congregational Church for half-a-century, and that her mother was Abigail Morgan. These parents gave Eliza her mother’s maiden name and her father’s family’s name, so could they have wanted her to always know about her roots? Eliza Morgan Sherman remembered, and must have gleaned something else from her upbringing in Brodhead that she found very attractive, for she apparently lived almost all of her life – some 78.5 years – in Brodhead, or near there. Fifty years as a deacon’s daughter is a pretty long stretch. A small church and community are where Eliza evidently experienced love firsthand. Have you got a magnet with that kind of staying power?          

 

 

See few scant details of the authoress here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/e/r/sherman_em.htm

 

Find all three verses and the song’s refrain here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/o/p/r/e/oprelove.htm

 

Also see here for the song’s lyrics: O, the Precious Love of Jesus | Hymnary.org

 

See here for information about the authoress’s birthplace: Brodhead, Wisconsin - Wikipedia

 

See information on the seal of Wisconsin here: File:Coat of arms of Wisconsin.svg - Wikimedia Commons …  This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1929, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal.

Never Gonna Let Me Go -- Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill

‘Take it all.’ That seemed like a key phrase that two songwriters settled upon when they thought about what they wanted to say for a song on this album that they and others helped put together in 2014. In order for someone to really mean what he says with those three short words, he would have to offer himself totally – an act of unreserved and complete sacrifice. That would be Passion – unlike what anyone else has ever lived, or died, to demonstrate. And so, when Jason Ingram and Kristian Stanfill were reflecting on Jesus’ passion – His great sacrifice for everyone – they must have thought about how he did that because of His unswerving devotion to those He created, that He was “Never Gonna Let (You and) Me Go”. (See the 16^th Century painting Christ Carrying the Cross here by El Greco.) We didn’t hear Him say so, but can you imagine what it was like when Jesus spoke to our enemy, with utter conviction--‘You cannot have them, Satan. They are mine!’? This day is passion’s culmination – Friday – when Jesus gave it all. Do you feel His grip?

 

The album’s name is Passion: Take It All, and that was the foundation upon which the Atlanta-Houston Passion Conference in 2014 built its message to young Christians that year. Jason and Kristian wrote, either individually or collaboratively with others or each other, four songs for the album, including ‘Never Gonna…’, with a very upbeat, celebratory kind of tune that testifies to how the saved can feel when they appreciate how much He’s done to complete our victory. And, that His hold on you and me is certain, results in an outpouring of thanks in its lyrics. Love is the engine, according to Jason and Kristian. His ‘love break(s) through..stone’…’breathes (into) my bones’…’reach(es) out to my soul’. This love also is‘calling…’, ‘making me new’, and ‘lifting me’. Is it any surprise that the Almighty God says He is love, through one of His apostles (1 John 4:8,16), and that this love can do so much? Just listen to what Jason and Kristian say this love overcomes: a ‘lost’ and ‘blind’ condition, ‘darkness wandering’, where ‘no life’ and ‘no hope’ permeate the environment (v.1). Medical doctors have no cure for a blind person, and have only limited abilities to revive the dead; and psychiatrists and psychologists can do only so much for the person who’s lost emotionally, someone without hope. But the Great Physician has the answer! That exclamation point is what Jason and Kristian might add if a musical note to express this existed. But, what they do instead is underscore with their lyrics the pivotal nature of love, by singing this four-letter word repeatedly in its various roles. Thirty times – is that enough to tell just how important this God-infused condition is? And, it’s so crucial to us understanding Him, that the word is not a passive noun in the song’s language. It is a verb, with potent action. Indeed, it’s so potent and alive, that it defied the death march that Jesus walked, and the cross upon which He hung, that passion Friday.

 

Jesus’ passion needs no more exposition from this blogger. What He’s done stands firmly all on its own. The only thing left for you and me is how to respond. He wants to give me an abundant life, one ‘to the full’ (John 10:10), and so it was no mere execution, no tragic accident that Jesus gave it all. Jesus Himself was preparing to execute the capital criminal that was menacing and killing the human soul. He’s knocked him out cold, condemning him to the Abyss, and finally to the fiery lake (Revelation 17 and 20). The match is over in this spiritual battle. The Bible’s last book says we win, if we join the love-natured, and Almighty Lamb. You can sing about never being let go, with the rest of us. Do you wanna be on the winning side?       

 

  

 

See here for information about one of the songwriters: Kristian Stanfill - Wikipedia

 

See here for biographic information on the other songwriter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Ingram

 

See here for information about the album on which the song appears: Passion: Take It All - Wikipedia

 

See here for information on the painting shown here, and its public domain status: File:Christ Carrying the Cross 1580.jpg - Wikimedia Commons.  This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

 

He Knows My Name – Tommy Walker

 He wasn’t thrilled with the topic, and really needed someone else to push him into it. What if Tommy Walker’s Divine Maker had felt that way in the beginning, if He had pursued half-heartedly the man-making project, if He had even decided that “He Knows My Name” was just a momentary and insignificant cerebral fragment? Instead, Tommy decided, eventually, that God’s inspiration wasn’t just whimsical, and that an upcoming sermon by a minister in a Los Angeles church (see the seal of Los Angeles here) was the stimulant he could not ignore. After all, he was a worship minister, and this was his role – to write a song when so directed. God is creative in His very nature. So, when someone tells you to mimic that characteristic, what’s that say about you if you refuse? Tommy had already decided that God’s work in his human-ness wasn’t an accident, so he answered with what this minister was expecting. Just flip the switch, and say ‘OK, I’m ready; you’ve got me, God. Use me to say what You want’.

Actually, Tommy Walker’s Los Angeles preacher who asked him for a song in 1996 probably deserves some notable credit for ‘He Knows…’, because that was the title of the sermon that he’d already chosen. You can almost see Tommy sighing as this minister (Mark Pickerill) pitched the idea at him; what had stirred this minister’s thoughts, anyway? Tommy admits he needed ‘sheer discipline’ to agree to this, because he really didn’t feel motivated, even as the poetry began to develop and ink flowed from his pen. Tommy was initially convinced this would be only an average-quality song, but he stuck with it nevertheless.  Perhaps it was the simplicity of the concept that helped Tommy finally feel that something special was in work. Just go with the idea that this Creator made me, and scope out how He expressed Himself in that process. He doesn’t just know ‘my name’, He knows my ‘thoughts’. He gave me a ‘heart’, and my ‘tears’ are ones He gives me. And, He listens when I ‘call’, because He knows what’s going on inside this person He made. It’s all about intimacy with this God and me, Tommy must have decided, as he continued to write. It started in the very first few moments, ‘before even time began’, that I became His. ‘In His hands…’, and ‘…His own’, are words that Tommy used to confess that he could not exist, even as a thought, if God had not first been who He is. And, despite my ability to leave or try to ignore Him, He won’t ‘leave me’. Perhaps that’s because something is more true of God than even His created humans understand at times: that He cannot remove Himself from those He made, since we’re in His image. A human may decide to run away from Him when he really doesn’t want to be part of His Creator. How long can that really persist, one might ask? How much sadness does that engender in God when that happens? Jonah ran the other way, and a whole generation snubbed their noses in Noah’s day. They didn’t have God in human likeness to change their minds. What excuse do you and I have?

Tommy includes a lot of scriptural reminders that God does indeed see each of us intimately (see the link below that show what many writers have said – John [John and 1 John), Isaiah, Jeremiah, David [in Ps. 56, 139], and Moses [in Exodus]). He does feel what we feel, cries over those He made, as the bible’s shortest verse relates (John 11:35).  Why’d He create, if the result has pained Him so? That He’s inscrutable is also who He is, but not when it comes to reaching out for me. It’s a lifelong education, this knowing Him. He already knows me, and yet I cannot help feeling the frustration that there’s always a deficit on my end of this understanding. But, I cannot deny the link is there, and that to fight Him is vain. He knows you and me. Tommy thought at first that this was a ‘so what?’ Then, he thought about it some more. Keep thinking, he says.      

Information on the story behind “He Knows My Name” can be found in Tommy Walker’s book Songs from Heaven, written with Phil Kassel in 2005, published by Regal Books.

Also see the story here: https://www.tommywalkerministries.org/media/song-of-the-week-2019-16-he-knows-my-name

See information on the seal of Los Angeles here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seal_of_Los_Angeles.svg . The seal  is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work was created by a government unit (including state, county, city, and municipal government agencies) that derives its powers from the laws of the State of California and is subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Government Code § 6250 et seq.). It is a public record that was not created by an agency which state law has allowed to claim copyright, and is therefore in the public domain in the United States.

I've Been Redeemed – Anonymous

 

Who wrote it (maybe members of the Salvation Army?)? Short answer – we don’t know. That would be the end of the story for some people, except that this musical subject for today has so many potent, positive things to communicate. The anonymous poet – or poets – said so many things that are connected to “I’ve Been Redeemed”, that one can hardly ignore what they’ve written, any more than we could belittle what the Salvation Army does. But, would it also be fair to say that the list of items linked to one’s personal redemption has not been fully described in the verses? Who could adequately tell all that a believer gains by being saved from destruction, by being redeemed from eternal captivity?  One might be more credible as a witness if he/she visited us mortals after at least a glance inside heaven’s door, to have seen the face of the Redeemer. And yet, the liberation of our souls has begun already, if we can grasp what biblical writers and the composer or composers of this upbeat little song tell us. See if you get it, once you gather in all the words they give us.

 

Did the poet or poets of ‘I’ve Been Redeemed’ have open a bible while celebrating what comes with this assurance of which they wrote? Try on what one guy named John had to say (1 John 5:13), and it seems that the lyrics really flow from realizing that at least some of the magnitude of redemption’s gift is in its immediacy. It’s already begun! That belief’s confidence comes across best in perhaps one word of the title – ‘Been’. You and I are not waiting; we already have it. And, just listen to all of the buoyant things that come with this, according to the poets’ words. Besides being ‘redeemed’, I have contact even with the ‘Holy Ghost’…amazing! What has happened includes access to the ‘blood of the Lamb, through which my ‘sin (is) washed away’. I’ve been ‘baptized’, and since I’ve ‘been to the river’, I can now know I’m ‘saved’, ‘sanctified’.  ‘Grace’ – that’s a great word, and there’s so many more. Are ‘hallellujah’, ‘He’s coming back’, being able to ‘pray’ and ‘praise’ Him any less significant? While some words or phrases might engender dread for others, when we who are redeemed consider ‘Judgement Day’ and standing before ‘His throne’, our hearts burn with longing. A probably universally happy thought is having someone ‘take me home’, right? There’s not many songs whose words convey no negative concepts, but this is appropriate for this one. It’s as if these writers wanted to think of nothing else except the brilliant light that was shining. ‘Felt so good that I stayed all day’ –these are the words of one alternate verse of the song. They provide in a nutshell what the author/s must have intrinsically gathered from their own experience. If you arrive in this redemption land, you just try to stay there. Nothing else matters compared to this.

 

Could the attitude of the poet/s of ‘I’ve Been Redeemed’ derive from other biblical writers, as well as John? How many were martyrs, from among those Jesus charged with spreading the word about Him? All of them (except John), seemingly. And yet, they staked their lives on this redemption, believing its reward is so unique and magnificent, and believable.  They used all of the words these poets used. So, the question that us who are redeemed can pose to others is thus: what other promise have you got that offers so much, has so much written of it, has centered earth’s history and our calendars to that One person, and requires only your acceptance? These poets believed this redeeming act was accomplished fact, not a giant hoax. We’ll only know their identities someday, but you and I can believe today the words these writers already gave us. I believe words were spoken by other historical characters I’ve never met, so I can believe ‘I’ve Been Redeemed’, too. Can you?    

 

 

 

See this link for all six verses of the song: https://hymnary.org/text/ive_been_redeemed_by_the_blood_of_anon

List of Christian martyrs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs