How great thou art (or something like that)
Thursday, July 19, 2007

And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.

I sang this song with great gusto recently at an event where I had the opportunity to sing with a bunch of people from different backgrounds. A lady across from me sang her heart out in the chorus (particularly in the '..THEN SINGS MY SOUL'), but in the above verse she yawned and turned around to smile and chat to people nearby until the chorus came up and then she belted it out again.
It got me thinking... Why is God great? What does God do that makes him worthy of our praise and worship? Do we just sing to him with gusto because it makes us feel good to sing?
Jesus! Jesus is God's greatest revelation to us of his mercy, kindness, compassion, justice, might, sovereignty. Jesus and his work on the cross are the reason why we sing praises, and live lives of worship to God. My soul sings because Jesus has bled and died in my place. He took my burden and God's wrath for me has been satisfied. My Saviour God, Thou art indeed great! May we never stop singing about Jesus because we want to sing about how much we love singing. May we never stop singing about Jesus for any reason. How great Thou art!

Posted byDan at 10:13 PM  

4 comments:

Ben said... 7:35 AM  

Great post, Dan. I heartily agree that Jesus is what makes God great.

The only thing I'm a bit unsure about in that great hymn (and this might be oversensitivity) is that by 'God', they really mean the Father. So 'God' did not spare his Son, but sent him to die. It almost feels as though the Father is the 'real' God, and Jesus is a reflection of him or something?

Anonymous said... 9:11 PM  

To the blog: Hear hear!!

To Ben: The Father is the real God, but so is Jesus. To say He is just a reflection is blasphemy. Philippians 2:5,6 - He was the image of God on earth, but that doen't mean He isnt God. He is still fully God.

Andy M said... 10:08 PM  

Wonderful, wonderful hymn. We had it at our wedding in fact (10 years ago next month!).

I love how it moves from creation to the cross.

I've actually done a new arrangement for it recently (same tune though) and we've done it church once, and will be doing it again tomorrow morning.

Dan said... 8:08 AM  

to anonymous: show your name.

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