Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
By: Robert Robinson, 1735-90

Listen as you read.  This version from In Reverence by David Tolk.

How true is that!!  His kindness still or yet pursues me, though I regularly or routinely live as though I have no awareness of it.  My mortal tongue, limited by the residue of my sinful nature, simply can not do a very good job of telling of God’s goodness to me.

But that does not give me an excuse not to try.

No Excuses

Even though I may not be very good at proclaim or declaring God’s goodness to me, I am determined to try just the same.  And why wouldn’t I?  After all, the Good Shepherd keeps coming after me, even though I routinely choose to ignore His voice and go my own way.  I tend to be such a stupid sheep sometimes.  Though I know Jesus has a much better plan than anything I could come up with, I am very good at wandering away from His.

Ultimately, I really can not even do a very good job of telling how faithful His pursuing love is, even when I try.  There are limitations that are simply a part of this existence, but that is all going to change, One Day.  As Robinson puts it, “till death shall loose me”, or rather release me from sin’s grip and resultant weakness.

One Day

I will be much better at it One Day.  And how I long for that Day.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, this life has many wonderful things, albeit shadows of what God has in store for us.  This should have the effect of making us long for the day we finally see Him, our Shepherd, face-to-face.  That in addition to the fact that for the first time we will have the full capacity to offer Him praise, coupled with an overwhelming desire to do so.

For these reasons, and so many more, I echo the words from Revelation 22:20, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Good Shepherd, help me long for the day when I will be able to praise you with my lips and life as my soul wants to do today.  My inability to offer You the worship You deserve reminds me of my need for You to continue to pursue my ever-wandering heart.  Thank You Jesus for Your great love.

Does your heart long to sing better praise that you can these days?  What thoughts come to mind as you consider how Jesus, pursued, and keeps pursuing you?  Please share as others my be encouraged by the fact they are not alone in this tension created by praising poorly.

Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 3 

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Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing
By: Robert Robinson, 1735-90

Listen as you read.  This version from In Reverence by David Tolk.

You.  He wants to hear you.  And not just hear you, but see you.  You see your life is a song.  Actually, it is a song of praise.  Your life boldly declares what you believe is worthy of worship, even when your lips are not moving and there is no sound coming from you.

You see, you may not be a great singer, actually you may be pretty terrible, but God wants to hear your voice lifted in praise.  He wants to see your life spent to bring Him glory.  He does not “hear” as our ears hear.  As C.S. Lewis put it in his brief essay, “On Church Music”, God accepts our offering like a parent accepts the artwork of their child, not on artistic merit, but intent.  The heart is the issue.  [You can read the entire article here.]

Notice the hymn writer asks God to “tune my heart”, not “tune my voice”.  After all, since the dawn of time He has heard the praises of heavenly beings, so how can my voice compete.  Every day His creation pours forth praise, so where would my vocal chords stack up?  Thankfully, His favorite song is that of the redeemed.

I love how theBrooklyn Tabernacle Choir puts it in there song,  Favorite Song of All.

“But His favorite song of all, is the song of the redeemed,
When lost sinners now made clean, lift their voices loud strong…”

I hope you’ll sing, but I really hope you will determine to live your life before God, in response to His redeeming love, in such a way that it is music to His ears, even if the pitch might not be to your neighbors.

So what will you do today to tune your heart, or demonstrate to God you want Him to tune it?  Comment below for someone make be inspired by your decision.  Tuning takes time, and can only be done by adjusting untuned notes back to some standard.  Our standard is His perfect love.  Consider again today His never-ending streams of mercy and His redeeming love, and let Him tune your heart.

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Video Log, Come Thou Fount – Episode 1 

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