Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
Music Monday: The Story Behind a Beloved Hymn
Have you ever wondered about the stories behind the hymns we've sung for generations? Today, we uncover the fascinating and unlikely origin of "Oh How I Love Jesus," a beloved hymn with a surprisingly divided history.
What many don't realize is that Whitefield originally wrote nine verses, though most hymnals only include four. The five forgotten verses contain some of the most beautiful imagery in the hymn, speaking of God's guidance through darksome paths, His comfort in our deepest sorrows, and the promise of joining "the blood-bought throng" in heaven. These lost lyrics enrich our understanding of the hymn's message - that our love for Jesus flows naturally from His prior love for us, as 1 John 4:19 reminds us: "We love him because he first loved us."
As we begin our week, let this powerful truth settle into your heart: God loved you before you ever thought about Him, before you deserved it, before you were right with Him. His love never ends and never fades. Listen to Carrie Underwood's beautiful rendition of this hymn (link in show notes), and carry this message with you today.
Here is the youtube link to today's song.
https://youtu.be/u8fKX3xZaMM
Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax and let me help you start your day right. Good morning everybody, and welcome to Music Monday.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to take a look at an old hymn written in 1855. The hymn is oh how I Love Jesus. Frederick Whitefield wrote the verses and they are some beautiful, powerful words. But when it comes to the well-known chorus, it was written by someone who had never met Whitefield and in fact the tune and the words of the chorus were associated with several other hymns before it was ever joined together with oh how I Love Jesus. And, what's more, whitefield was from England and the chorus it seemed to come from somewhere within the United States. Over the early 1800s it sort of floated around for a number of years, attaching itself to different hymns in different ways, including Amazing Grace and Alas and Did my Savior Bleed. These and several other hymns were all sung to this tune for a number of years.
Speaker 1:It wasn't until this chorus, married to Frederick Whitefield's verses, that we finally had this wonderful, wonderful song in which we declare how much we love Jesus. Of course, this hymn is based upon 1 John 4, 19, which says we love him because he first loved us. Isn't that a great message, particularly on a Monday morning, to know that God loved us first, before we ever deserved it, before we were ever right with him. In reality, before we ever even thought about him, god loved us and that love never ends and it never fades. And because of his love for us, we now love him. If you look at most hymnals today, you'll find that there are four verses to this song, but Whitfield actually wrote five more verses which are not included in any of the hymnals, but they have some powerful words.
Speaker 1:Here are the words of the verses that we don't sing. They go like this it tells me what my Father has in store for every day and, though I tread a darksome path, yields sunshine all the way. It tells of one whose loving heart can feel my deepest woe, who in each sorrow bears a part that none can bear below. It bids my trembling heart rejoice. It dries each rising tear. It tells me, in a still small voice, to trust and never fear. This name shall shed its fragrance still along this thorny road shall sweetly smooth the rugged hill that leads me up to God. And there, with all the blood-bought throng from sin and sorrow, free, I'll sing the new eternal song of Jesus' love for me.
Speaker 1:Oh how I love Jesus, because he first loved me. Loving Jesus is not just an emotional response to him. It's recognizing who he is, that he is God, that he is the creator of all things, he is the Almighty. And then it's also remembering what he's done for us, that this Almighty God left heaven to come down to this earth, to suffer terribly and to die on a cross so that we might have the forgiveness of our sins and be able to have eternal life, living forever with him. He did that because he loved us, because he wants to work in our lives and wants to give us life, and then we love him because we remember that he did all of this because he loved us.
Speaker 1:When we say the words or we sing the song oh how I Love Jesus, it's a sense of awe and gratitude and respect, responding to the unbelievable acceptance that he has of us and for us. No matter where we come from, no matter what our background is, no matter the mistakes that we make, he has this overwhelming love and acceptance for us and he's always willing to help us, and so we can sing with a pure heart that is just filled with his gratitude and love that says oh how I love Jesus. Oh how I love Jesus. I'm going to leave you with a clip of this old hymn being sung by Carrie Underwood, and there will be a YouTube link in your notes today that you can click on and listen to the entire thing on YouTube. It's a great old hymn that declares our love for God and the fact that he has always loved us. In fact, he loved us first. Never forget that God loves you and he is for you. Have a great day, my friends. Here's Carrie Underwood with oh how I love Jesus.
Speaker 2:Oh, how I love Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus, because he first loved me.
