Each week come checkout this page and we will look at a different hymn. The selections will come from the Lutheran Service Book by Concordia Publishing House. The freshest post will be at the top and the oldest at the bottom. I am planning to use hymns that are current with the church season or one our pastor uses on Sunday. I hope you enjoy!
John 10:11
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus, the king of love, the good shepherd he is the one caring for you. He did not send in a replacement when Good Friday came and he was to be hung on a tree. He took care of things and he continues to take care of us.
Luke 15:4-7
[Jesus said] “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
He goes to lengths to get to us. As the hymn says we are foolish but God is wise. When we don’t even realize we need the shepherd he is searching for us. At just the right time he found each of us. And when he finds the sheep he does not drag them home through the mud and rocks instead he puts that sheep on his shoulder. He rejoices over it all! He wants everyone in heaven to rejoice with him because one of His sheep has been found.
Revelation 7:17
For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
When we celebrate Christmas we celebrate the day that the Shepherd became like one of his sheep. He took on human form. He did all the things that his sheep do, he experienced all the temptations that his sheep face, yet he did not give in to temptation. Instead of giving into temptation he gave himself up as our sacrifice on the cross. One day when we lose our life here on earth we will get to see the Lamb, as our shepherd. We will be quenched by the water he provides and we will not experience death and decay anymore.
Sometimes the lyrics and the scripture speaks for itself so I am not going to say much. Take this away with you today:
The King of love is taking care of you
In spite of our foolishness, wandering, and sin he seeks us.
When Jesus brings you home to him he is not grumbling but rejoicing.
I love introducing myself as Dallas’s wife. We recently moved to his ‘hometown’. Being his wife in a place where he is well known and well loved is pretty awesome. Even better is when HE introduces me to other people as his wife. It’s not just me claiming him but him claiming me.
Have you ever read the story of Hosea? If you haven’t I highly suggest it. It is not a story that we hear a lot about on Sunday morning. It certainly is not one that I recall hearing about at Sunday school. (Probably for good reason I don’t think the account would resonate with children like it does with adults).
I’m going to give you a little summary but I still encourage you to go read the narrative for yourself if you have the time or the energy. The whole book of Hosea is 13 chapters. The account of Hosea and his wife can be found in the first three chapters.
In the book of Hosea God instructs the prophet Hosea to go and get married. God does not tell Hosea to go after the perfect church going girl that mothers fawn after and want for their sons. God tells Hosea to go and get himself a a whore for a wife. I’m not exaggerating about the character of Hosea’s wife…..
“When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.”
Hosea and Gomer go on to have more children. The kids had some interesting names: No Mercy, Jezreel, and Not My People.
Gomer leaves her husband and the Lord says to Hosea “Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins.” (Hosea 3:1-2).
Throughout the book of Hosea the writer draws parallels between the marriage of faithful Hosea and unfaithful Gomer and the unfaithfulness of God’s people and their faithful Lord.
In spite of the unfaithfulness of Hosea, Gomer is called to love his wife.
In spite of the unfaithfulness of the Israelite’s God loves and is faithful to His people.
In spite of our unfaithfulness, Jesus loves and is faithful to us. His faithfulness lead him to the cross. His faithfulness will end in the church’s marriage to himself.
We can introduce ourselves as Christ’s bride. One day we will be living in his hometown of heaven. Not only in his hometown but in his Fathers home. (John 14:1-3) Not only will we be able to call ourselves his bride, He will claim us as his bride. We are well loved now and we will be well loved when we relocate to our heavenly hometown. Our sin will no longer separate us from our bridegroom, Christ. We will no longer feels the effects of sins and we will get to experience perfect communion with Christ, our bridegroom.
Our earthly marriages may be a disaster or they may look great. A marriage will come between Christ and the church that will blow every earthly marriage on earth out of the water.
I will leave you today with these words from a hymn…
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(sidenote: I adore my husband, I love him dearly, I love being introduced as his wife. There are times, however, when it’s not as pretty as the situation I described above. There are times when I shake my head in confusion, grind my teeth in frustration, and let my words drip with sarcasm and dislike when I speak to or about him. The times when our marriage can be a shadow of what is to come with Christ and his church are beautiful and not to be overlooked. That is why I am writing this. I’m not writing to give an example of our perfect marriage because that would be a lie but to give an illustration from life. When things are playing out as God intended it is beautiful and can give us tiny glimpses of the goodness of Jesus. It can give us something we have felt or something tangible we can relate to. I am so thankful for those moments when Jesus shines through. When things in life are destroyed by sin we can look with hope to the future. We can look with hope to our future, with the rest of the church, as the bride of Christ.)
This is what I looked up to see the other day while reading in our office chair. My two year old squatted down feasting on a box of powdered sugar donuts that grandma had brought with her when she visited us on Easter. That right there is shameless. As much as I might desire to squat down in front of a bucket of donuts naked I know I wouldn’t walk away with powdered sugar on my lips bearing it all.
Instead I would probably sneak away. I might face my kitchen counter so no one can see me jam the 5th bread stick in my mouth. I might wait till I round the corner to take one, two, three more bites of the blueberry dessert. I am pretty good at pulling an Eve and trying to hide myself with fig leaves. I might think I can keep it under the lush green leaves but eventually they turn brown, shrivel up, and fall off leaving everything behind them exposed.
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for good and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of it’s fruit and ate, and she also gave some to er husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaved together and made themselves loincloths.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not eat? The man said “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman. “What is this that you have done? The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
The Lord said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the day of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between you offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and and you shall bruise your heel.”
To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat other plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.
Genesis 3:6-21
I do the same thing with my sin as Eve did. I think I can hide my sin from the people around me. I even think I can hide it from God. I can’t but I do the best I can do try and hide them. Eventually most of them leak out. They especially leak out when we forge intimate relationships with people.
We can let people into the crud of our lives when we understand just how big the love of Jesus is. We can look at the verses that detail to us when Eve first defied God. In that story we can see Eve’s sin and get a glimpse of the big love Jesus has for his creation. God let them know all they would have to endure because of their disobedience. He hands down the consequences of their actions and in the same breath he lets them know how things will be fixed. He lets them know how He will fix it. Genesis 3:15 is the first time the gospel is spoken.
It didn’t take many pages of the bible before Adam and Eve sever their perfect relationship with God. What happened directly after is God setting out the plan on how to restore the relationship between Him and His creation he loves so dearly. Genesis 3:15 speaks about the death that Jesus experienced on the cross (you shall bruise his heel) and the victory Jesus had at the resurrection (He shall bruise your head).
We can let our guard down because we know how the story ends. He died and He Lives again. We know the end of the story. We can let our guard down with the people around us because we know how the story ends.
We can let people see the crud in our lives because Jesus hung naked on a dead tree until life left his body.
He did it not because of anything we did but because of the love he has for us.
When we do eat the donuts and have the powdered sugar on our lips we can let people see it. We can let them see where we struggle and point them to the love and faithfulness of Jesus. We can let them know that we lose to sin everyday but Jesus won the greatest victory.
Chief of Sinners Though I Be sets to music a description of just how big the love Jesus has for us is:
So let’s live life with the people around us, let’s eat donuts together (with our clothes on…unless you are eating them with your hubby that might be fun…but lock the door if you have kids…you don’t want to pay that psych bill in 20 years), and let people see the powdered sugar on our lips.
More importantly when they see the powdered sugar point them to Jesus.
Let them know you are not proud of the powdered sugar on your lips but you know it’s there.
Let them know you are not proud of the sin in your life.
Let them know that you can confess it all to your God.
Let them know you can be honest because you know you are loved in spite of having a powdered sugar ring around your lips. Let them know:
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Good Friday can be an emotional experience. Last night when Pastor stripped the altar to complete the Maudy Thursday Service it was an emotional experience. A moment that made us pause and think. The hubby and I were able to go just the two of us last night because my beautiful sister in law took all four of our kiddos overnight. (That’s right all four overnight. And from what it sounds like I sent a crap show over to her house last night. There was vomit, forgotten clothes, and she currently has her kitchen ripped apart. That right there is Christian service.)
Watching Pastor remove all of the ornaments that beautify the alter being removed, hearing the Velcro rip off the altar, seeing an altar that usually shows life with flowers and color now bear, being prepared to remember death. The same altar that moments before we had received the life giving meal of Christ’s body and blood.
In our usual routine I may not have noticed as much. My brain may not have been able to process it with a toddler crawling all over me. An 8 year old asking how much longer for the 100th time, and a kindergartner begging me to look at her final picture. In all that it would not have been any type of heart tugging experience for me or a moment to make me stop and think.
Either way the goodness and faithfulness of Jesus are all still present. It does not depend on my much of an emotional response I have, how deeply I realize or respond to it. It is just a free gift given by Jesus in so many ways. One of the places you can watch and know it is being dealt out is in the divine service.
Which ever place you are in. If you are having an emotional response to your sin or just know that the Balm to heal the wounded heart and the peace that flows from sin forgiven, the Joy that lifts out soul to heaven is still there.
When our sin confronts us and when we realize that we are the chief of sinners the only cure is Jesus.
The only balm to heal the wounded heart when we are in the pit of our sin is knowing that peace that flows from Jesus veins the forgiveness of sins that we are in the season of remembering.
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I love the days when I have perfect Instagram ready messy bun. If you are a mom right now you probably know what I’m talking about. Some days I can ‘throw my hair up’ and I look like the supposedly ‘frazzled mom’ on Facebook meme’s, Instagram posts, and twitter feeds. Also, if you are a mom right now you know that if you have an Instagram ready bun you probably are not overly frazzled. That bun takes time.
The actual messy pony tail comes out when I have been cleaning poop smears off of the bathroom cabinets, picking up puppy poop, feeling icky because I have been eating things that taste oh so good but are oh so bad for me. The non-Instagram bun comes out when I’m feeling sorry for myself during the middle of the spring because I haven’t eaten supper with an adult in 3 weeks.
Those messy buns can represent our lives. It is trendy right now to ‘be real’. But let’s face it. We are never going to be completely real on the internet. Even if we wanted to we can’t give people a full picture of our lives. And we don’t really want to. I don’t know that it would be healthy to purge all of our junk onto the internet. We post pictures of our messy kitchens and dirty laundry. I don’t post a video of me yelling at the kids because its 5:30 and I’m hungry and they are loud. I don’t show pictures of my disgusted face when my two year old asks me to snuggle him. I haven’t even had that hard of a day I just want to do my own thing and not sit on the couch. I don’t want to show people just how pervasive my selfishness is. I’ve also noticed that even a picture of the garbage in our lives doesn’t really capture the ick of it all.
There is an actual messy bun that exists and the messy bun that we take the time to perfect. Just like in life. There is our actual messy lives and then there is the ‘mess’ that we show to others. The mess that we show to others takes time to prepare just like the Instagram messy bun does.
The question I have to ask myself is not ‘how do I show my authentic self on social media’? I do not need to worship at the altar of others opinions or social media. I’m not saying I don’t because I do. I really want people to like me.
I don’t even know if I can come up with a question to ask myself. What I need to do is look at my life in the light of what I should be doing. WARNING: It’s not going to be pretty. Examining our lives in light of the law of God is going to hurt.
BUT we can do it.
We should do it.
Confession is a healthy thing.
We can do it not because we are going to figure out how to fix it all. Not because we are sure the people around us will forgive us. Not because there will be no suffering if we confess. Not because it will make people like us more.
We can do it because the one we should be worshiping already knows and has already forgiven and forgotten. We can be open and genuine about our sin with the people we need to be open and genuine about our sin with because our sin is already known, forgiven, and forgotten by God. All the sorrow that our sins have created in our lives are known, forgiven, and forgotten by God.
Lutheran Service Book # 611
He came to earth knowing he would take all of our junk to the cross with him. He walked around on this earth suffering and knowing all the sorrows that we experiance. He knows our sin and sorrows because he lived on the same earth you are living right now. He hung on a cross to die for all the ways we wrong him and those around us.
The book of Hebrews tell us about our Jesus our high priest.
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This hymn writer didn’t waste any time getting to the heart of it ALL. The writer puts it so simply yet it is so hard for me to wrap my head around. When we get a glimpse at the depth of our sin we get a glimpse at how big the love of Jesus is.
It is hard to envision myself or others as enemies of God. It’s even harder to rationalize that anyone would die for their ENEMY. It’s difficult to wrap my brain around the fact that while I am fighting against him he is fighting for me. No matter how hard it is for me to understand Romans is clear that we were weak, sinning, enemies of God. It is also clear that he didn’t decide to save us because we cleaned our act up. All the good stuff comes from and through Christ’s death and resurrection.
No matter how hard it is for me to understand it is still true that we were weak, sinners, enemies of God. No matter how hard it is for me to understand it is still true that because of the work of Christ we are justified, saved, reconciled, and we now REJOICE in Jesus.
Jesus isn’t in the business of doing things that make rational sense. Jesus is about saving people. Jesus is in the business of reconciling his enemies back to himself.
This is a powerful verse to have imprinted in our minds. Nothing is sugar coated. The sins that we commit are not brushed under the table. The sins we commit are not called accidents or mistakes. We are reminded that we are so deep in the pit of our sin we are given the title chief of sinners. Sinner is not the only title we hold though.
We are also
justified,
saved,
and reconciled.
The more I dive into these hymns the more I want to recommend them as a devotional resource and that is exactly what I’m going to do today. I would encourage you to go pick up a hymnal. In particular the Lutheran Service Book from Concordia publishing house. I say that because I love Lutheran hymns, especially during lent. I love them because I grew up with them AND because the focus is on Christ page after page verse after verse.
Why would I recommend it as a devotional? Reread the words of the above verse:
They that drink shall live forever, Tis a soul renewing flood
God is faithful. God will never Break his covenant of blood
Signed when our Redeemer died. Sealed when He was glorified.
And that’s just one tiny verse from a short four verse hymn in a book that contains 593 different hymns. It’s a gem of a resource. Where to start? I would start with whatever church season we are currently in.
Hymns put the story of our salvation from the creation of the world until now into poetic words. Our brains readily retain information when it rhymes or when it is set to music. Kids and the elderly are a great example of that. Put something to music and kid’s brains eat it up and digest it. Working as a CNA in a nursing home the residents can sing back words to a favorite hymn on days they may not remember their own child’s name. Songs are something that replay in our heads. We may remember a line of a devotional we love but our brains do not cling to plain text as it does when it is set to music or when it’s rhythmic.
The hymnal is a devotional gem for so many reasons other than just the hymns also. In order to stay focused I will just stick to the hymns but know that there is more to a hymnal than hymns.
Another reason a hymn makes a shinning gem of a devotional is that each of the hymns has scripture references correlating to the hymn at the bottom of each page. For instance Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain references four different sections of scripture. One of them is found in Hebrews 9:14
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
The scripture gives us a richer understanding of the hymn text. We can see where the ideas, imagery, concepts for the hymns were gleaned from. There are times…a lot of days when I just can’t focus on what I’m reading. My mind is racing on everything I have to get done. If I can write down what I’m reading my comprehension of the text goes through the roof (okay maybe not through the roof, but it does go up). The length of the scripture references of hymns lends itself to writing one, two, or all of the scripture out.
I pray the words of the hymn will stick with you today, tomorrow, and the next day.
They that drink shall live forever, Tis a soul renewing flood
God is faithful. God will never Break his covenant of blood
Signed when our Redeemer died. Sealed when He was glorified.
Remember that the saving grace that God provides is a flood not just a trickle.
It is all about the faithfulness of God and the covenant he has made.
Immediately after Adam and Eve tried to obtain the good things on their own and went out against God’s command he told them how he would redeem it.
When God make the covenant with Abraham he was sleeping. The strength of the covenant has so little to do with us and so much to do with the faithfulness of God.
God is the one who signed our salvation into being and it was ‘sealed when HE was glorified.’
If I sold the idea to you the hymnal I use can be found here: Lutheran Service Book at Concordia Publishing House
or here :Lutheran Service Book on Amazon
Thanks so much for taking the time to read today. I hope you were encouraged and pointed to Jesus. I’d love to hear from you! Send me a message! Feel free to share this post on social media if you think it would be encouraging to someone else. Seriously, thanks so much for reading!
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This week has been a little crazy. It has not been a crazy where I can identify three specific reasons for the crazy. I can’t give specific reasons’ because the list would be to long and seem to ‘normal’. It probably looked similar to your week. Sometimes weeks don’t need to be traumatizing for me to be ready for the week to be done. I have just been in a funk. Things just have not been falling into the places I thought they should fall.
This blog post is one of those things that was not falling into place. I have tried to write about a hymn about 7 different times over the week. It was originally going to be on ‘Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain’ (Maybe next week). That was before Billy Graham passed away this week.
I’m too young to have been directly affected by his crusades but I have heard stories this week about the man and the crusades. Kathy Lee gave a tribute to his legacy. Christ met her in a movie theater during a Billy Graham movie. Just this morning I learned that l ‘Just as I am, without one plea’ would be playing in the background during the final alter call.
This week ‘Just as I am’ was a hymn I could hear played in my head over and over again. It is a hymn that is applicable the first time Christ brings us to him AND each day after. It is a prayer that can be sung weekly, daily, even hourly.
Just as I am
Just as I am without one plea But that Thy blood was shed for me
And that thou biddst me come to Thee O Lamb of God I come, I come
Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark blot.
To Thee, whose blood can cleanse each spot, O Lamb of God I come, I come
Just as I am though tossed about With many a conflict many a doubt
Fighting’s and fears within without O Lamb of God I come I come
Just as I am poor wretched blind Sight riches healing of the mind,
Yea all I need, in Thee to find, O Lamb of God I come, I come.
Just as I am, Thou wit receive. Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve
Because Thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
Just as I am; Thy love unknown Has broken every barrier down
Now to be Thine yea, Thine alone, O Lamb of God I com, I come.
Just as I am with all my conflicts and doubts
Just as I am with my sinful blotted soul
Just as I am blind to His goodness
Just as I am overwhelmed by the day to day
Just as I am crabby because my plans did not pan out
Just as I am tired and haggard
Just as I am clinging to my cup of coffee
Just as I am listening to my kids yell at each other in the basement again and at a loss for how to intervene.
Just as I am Jesus comes to me. I do not need to clean up my act he meets us where we are and does the cleaning for us.
Rest in that assurance. ‘Just as I am without one plea’ Jesus’s blood was shed for you.
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If I start this blog entry with words of adoration of a particular hymn these posts introductions are going to get redundant. I love hymns because it’s the gospel put into poetry. Poetry that easily sticks in my brain. God’s love described poetically entering my and my kids ears no matter my or their disposition toward sitting in the pew. The narrative of God pursuing people throughout history put into poetry.
When things are set to music you can’t help but remember it. It is as if you do not have to make a conscious effort to log away the words or ideas your brain naturally does all the work.
The simplicity of this hymn resounds with the message of ‘Jesus Loves Me’.
Oh my heart imprint Your Image, Blessed Jesus, King of Grace
That life’s riches, cares, and pleasures Never may your work erase
Let the clear inscription be Jesus crucified for me
Is my life, my hope’s foundation, And my glory and salvation!
-Lutheran Service Book #422
What an awesome message to flow through the ears of my kids. The message that Jesus and his work on the cross is forever imprinted on their hearts.
Loved In Spite of Self 
The only thing missing is I think you should sing it down here also 😘
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