Here we report on hymns and songs that express New Covenant truth. So many hymns and songs are weak if not sickly from the perspective of our New Covenant relationship with our God. Look here for hymns and songs the lyrics of which reflect the truth of the Gospel of the Kingdom.
“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go” George Matheson
George Matheson was born in 1842, in Glasgow, Scotland. At the age of twenty, he was engaged to be married and studying for the ministry. He discovered that he was going blind at which point his fiancée told him she could not go through life with a blind man and broke the engagement.
His sister cared for him as he went blind. She stayed on with him, learning biblical languages to help him with his studies. He finished his studies to become a minister with the Church of Scotland. Twenty years later, his sister was getting married and would be leaving him. He was sad and reminded of the heartbreak and loss he’d suffered years earlier. Out of that sadness he wrote this hymn.
About this hymn Matheson wrote, “I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five minutes and equally sure that it never received at my hands any retouching or correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high.”
Matheson died on August 28, 1906. He never married, choosing to remain single and to serve the Lord.
In 1884, Albert L. Peace, a well known Scottish organist, was asked to write the music for the lyrics. According to Peace, the music came to him as quickly as the text had come to Matheson: “After reading it over carefully, I wrote the music straight off, and may say that the ink of the first note was hardly dry when I had finished the tune.”
This hymn was chosen by William Borden as his life’s hymn. Read about Borden’s incredible story here.
“O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.
O Light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.
O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.
O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.
Banner image via Pixabay. Matheson image via “The Bailie,” July, 1881. Public domain.
One Pursuit 
Thank you, Tim, for sharing about this amazing true covenant hymn. The history and fascinating life of Mr. Matheson.
The words, so poetically perfect, convey that Christ lived in him.
The love that will not let go. All from one’s self letting go of everything else.
Yesterday, dear friend, I watched, read, and meditated hours on the truth of abiding in Christ. Letting all others go. Diagnosis. Dad’s health. Deteriorating conditions of humanity. I was encouraged, through Word and other influences of “iron” that protecting my heart, trampling the enemy, is the victor’s mindset~ mine! As the debt’s been paid and HE loved us to death! There’s no other love or way.
But it can’t be found without full surrender and communion with Christ. How did I miss this earlier in life? Perhaps, like George Matheson, it was when everything BUT abiding in Christ failed to create who Christ wanted me to be~ solely HIS!
You’re a blessing, dear friend.
I pray you and Rascal are enjoying the Kingdom life~ even despite weather or whatever! Finn and I send Christ’s love and blessings to you both!
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Indeed, O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
No mightier or more marvelous motivator for our moments, movements, and matters to honor, adore, and bless our magnificent Maker, our munificent Master, avails than that of the massively merciful connection, the loving union and longing communion that Christ Himself is, as so excellently exemplified in 2 Corinthians 3:18 and eminently elucidated in 1 Corinthian 13.
2 Corinthians 3:18 AMP
And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.
For pleasing and extolling the One Beautiful Triune God is nothing in all creation whatsoever surpassing or even approximating that of being transformed into the transcendently resplendent image of the uniquely begotten Son of our Abba’s almighty, darling love, the all-good, all-glorious, all-grand, eternally triumphant God-Man Christ Jesus.
Beholding is becoming! Focusing on faults and failings, ours or others, distracted we falter and fail; persisted in, faithfulness to the One Faithful fades.
Conversely, Christocentric focusing on He Who Is our Wisdom, our Righteousness, our Sanctification, and our Redemption, our Meaning, our Purpose, our Direction, our Resurrection, and our Life, we change, conforming ever closer to the character of Christ, which is the chief, concentrated, therefore, consecrated cause for ceaseless celestial celebration.
Soak in, become saturated, and satiated with the spiritually sane and superlative state that is the supernatural, superscendent dunamis of 2 Corinthians 3:18, the holy Trinity of loving, living Infinity Himself.
Holy, honoring faith and favor function and are fueled and fortified by no less than love.
Galatians 5:6 AMP
For [if we are] in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but only faith activated and expressed and working through love.
It takes God Who Is Love (1 John 4:8,16) to love God. The One Beautiful Triune God is the sole Source and the splendorous Supply of love, the exact expression, the marvelous manifestation, and the darling demonstration of love Who can never forget, fail nor forsake His beloveds. Truly loving God for even a millisecond, His merciful, tenderly loving-kindness enables and ennobles me Christlike. Creation is the conduit of Christ, the Creator, His Spirit of love, the Conductor. Created in the image of our Creator, Who Is Himself, the life of love, the essence, the excellence, and the eternality of love is our chief capacity and passionate propensity to co-create in comportment and conformity to our Creator. The closer our communion with Christ, the more Himself Who Is Love overflows from us, for more people’s precious citizenship in the celestial City for the claim and fame of His Name everlasting above every name.
Ephesians 3:16-20 AMP
16 May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, 18 be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; 19 and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].
20 Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.
1 John 4:10-12 AMP
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [that is, the atoning sacrifice, and the satisfying offering] for our sins [fulfilling God’s requirement for justice against sin and placating His wrath]. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us [in this incredible way], we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. But if we love one another [with unselfish concern], God abides in us, and His love [the love that is His essence abides in us and] is completed and perfected in us.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 AMP
The Excellence of Love
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love [for others growing out of God’s love for me], then I have become only a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal [just an annoying distraction]. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy [and speak a new message from God to the people], and understand all mysteries, and [possess] all knowledge; and if I have all [sufficient] faith so that I can remove mountains, but do not have love [reaching out to others], I am nothing. 3 If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body] to be burned, but do not have love, it does me no good at all.
4 Love endures with patience and serenity, love is kind and thoughtful, and is not jealous or envious; love does not brag and is not proud or arrogant. 5 It is not rude; it is not self-seeking, it is not provoked [nor overly sensitive and easily angered]; it does not take into account a wrong endured. 6 It does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices with the truth [when right and truth prevail]. 7 Love bears all things [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening].
8 Love never fails [it never fades nor ends]. But as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for the gift of special knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part [for our knowledge is fragmentary and incomplete]. 10 But when that which is complete and perfect comes, that which is incomplete and partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God]. 13 And now there remain: faith [abiding trust in God and His promises], hope [confident expectation of eternal salvation], love [unselfish love for others growing out of God’s love for me], these three [the choicest graces]; but the greatest of these is love.
“God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him.”
About this quote by John Piper, we see that we are most satisfied in God when we are most like God. We are most becoming like God by seeing and savoring the splendorous sovereignty and supremacy of our God Who Is Love, as habitually, undistractedly we give ourselves in wholehearted surrender and entire soul submission to Him, being lived by the overarching order of creation that is 2 Corinthians 3:18. God is most satisfied in us when we are most satisfied in God. In this rich and regal regard, there is no mutual exclusion at all. Alleluia!
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O Love That Will Not Let Me Go
Nothing created shall separate us from Christ, our uncreated Creator of all creation, Who is limitless Love Almighty (Romans 8:37-39,1 John 8,16, Revelation 1:8)!
Romans 8:37-39 AMP
37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us]. 38 For I am convinced [and continue to be convinced—beyond any doubt] that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the [unlimited] love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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