Hymn

A mighty fortress is our God,
A bulwark never failing;
Our helper he, amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great;
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.

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By Steve Camp

Glory in the cross, our faithful High Priest
Went beyond the veil as our Prince of Peace
Clothed with our sin, its guilt and shame
Our sinless Substitute, Jesus His name

Glory in the cross the Law now fulfilled
Righteousness displayed on Calvary’s Hill
Imputed to all who’d ever would believe
The Lord, the spotless Lamb, hung cursed upon a tree

Glory in the cross where grace doth abound
Where the Man of Sorrows wore transgressions crown
Wounded and chastened for our iniquities
Our faithful Redeemer, God the Father pleased

Together for the gospel; redeemed by the risen Lamb
By grace alone, through faith alone, on Christ alone we stand
Clothed with His righteousness; peace with God forevermore
By His word and for His glory, we proclaim the gospel story
That salvation is through only, Jesus Christ our Lord

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I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Refrain
Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down
All down at Jesus’ feet.

I’m not one of those stiff-necked folks who insist that only hymns are proper worship songs, but given the fact that there’s actually a plethora of bad Christian music out there nowadays, I still prefer hymns to contemporary Christian music (CCM).

There’s just something majestic and magnifying of the Lord in hymns, unlike bad CCM that harp about “what I want from God” or worse, not mentioning God at all in the lyrics.

As you can probably guess by now, lately I’ve been harking back to hymns after having listened to CCM for awhile. Perhaps it’s a ‘grass is greener on the other side’ phenomenon, but for most of my time in a church it was in one that only sings hymns, and not CCM.

The only reason I started listening to CCM was that I was younger then and needed a beat. I mean, if you’re a teenager who’s listening to Run D.M.C. and Bon Jovi on normal days and had to go with the slow solemn hymns on Sunday, you would not have any interest in the latter.

So, perhaps it’s also because I’m older now and (hopefully) more matured as a Christian, I have a new-found appreciation for hymns, especially those sung by a good church choir.

Here’s one I found recently that I particularly like titled Worthy of Praise — it’s from the church choir of a church that I plan on visiting on Sunday.

Of late, I’ve also thought much about going back to my Bible-Presbyterian roots, hence the planned visit. Sure, I don’t agree with infant baptism, and the KJV-only stance, but it’s a Biblical church and teaches sound doctrine.

Not to mention a great choir and mmm… hymns!

If you liked Worthy of Praise, take a listen to the hymn Trusting Jesus too.

Soli deo Gloria!

Source: All hymns linked in this post are sung by the Calvary Pandan Church Choir. Photograph of the Calvary Pandan Church Choir taken from the Calvary Pandan Church web site.

It is fast beginning a ‘tradition’ of sorts in our household that we have a song also for each Shabbat.

This Shabbat, as we rest let us (my wife and I) both share with you one of our favorite hymns of all time.

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me Lord.
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not nor man’s empty gain,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven’s joy, O bright heaven’s Son
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Shabbat Shalom.

Here’s another tune to carry the week, and this one is most touching.

When the heart cries
only God hears
The pain rises out of the soul
A man falls down before he sinks down
With a little prayer (he) cuts the silence

Sh’ma (Hear) Israel my God,
you’re the omnipotent
You gave me my life,
you gave me everything
In my eyes a tear,
the heart cries quietly
And when the heart is quiet,
the soul screams

Sh’ma (Hear) Israel my God,
now I am alone
Make me strong my God;
make it that I won’t be afraid
The pain is big,
and there’s no where to run away
End it because I can’t take it anymore
(make the end of it because I have no more energy left within me)

When the heart cries,
Time stands still
All of a sudden, the man sees his entire life
He doesn’t want to go to the unknown
He cries to his God right before a big fall

Hebrew Lyric and source of translated lyric above at hebrewsongs.com.

Listen to the song here: