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My Top Ten Hymns
My sixth choice is another hymn of praise and worship.
6. To God be the Glory - Fanny J. Crosby
Why one of my choices?
This is such a wonderful hymn of praise which concentrates on the good things God does in our lives.
So often we are too confident in our own abilities and see the good things which happen as being down to our own hard work and effort.
We box God into our Sunday morning worship or exclude Him from our thoughts at all.
In the modern age we have sought to analyse and explain the mysterys of the world, often it seems with the declared intent of denying Gods part in it.
This hymn reminds me that God is at the very centre of everything in the world and more importantly at the very centre of everything in me.
I believe that my life has been transformed by God through my relationship with him and that He has done great things for me. So it is only natural that I should give him the glory every day.
Words
To God be the glory, great things He has done;
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.
Refrain
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
Let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory, great things He has done.
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O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
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Refrain
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Great things He has taught us, great things He has done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.
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Refrain
Background to the Hymn
Written by Fanny J. Crosby a prolific writer of hymn texts and first published in 1870.
The hymn was used in the Billy Graham Crusades in the 1950's, as a result it gained great popularity in Great Britain.
Fanny Crosby was blinded when she was seven weeks old. She attended the New York City School for the Blind and later became a teacher.
She began writing poetry when she was eight and started writing hymns in her forties. She published at least eight thousand hymns some under pseudonmys. Interestingly she was at times under contract to her publisher to write three hymns a week. However, she often wrote six or seven a day!
Her hymns were distributed widely and made popular at evangelistic services. As a result she was one of the most respected women of her era.
I found this analysis on the internet and it speaks volumes to me so include it here.
"In a sense, the hymn perfectly displaces us, removing us from the pedestal on which we so often place ourselves. This displacement is one of the great paradoxes of the Christian faith. It feels very natural for us to seek attention, approval, and our own glory. We like to be in control and present our own image to the world, an image we seek to improve through any means possible. On the other hand, there is great comfort in knowing that the image we try to make for ourselves doesn't matter. We are made in the image of God, which means that whatever we do has to bring Him and Him alone glory. Our lives are wrapped up in God, and so too are the mistakes we make, the wounds we inflict, and all of our shortcomings. These are the things we try to avoid while we maintain control of our lives. But what a joy and a comfort to know that though these things may happen, because God is ultimately in control, and because our own image does not matter, God is still glorified. While we should still try to live a holy and upright life, we should do so to bring God glory, not ourselves. What a beautiful freedom that is".