Hymn Story: My Jesus, I Love Thee

This past Sunday, I was honored to dedicate our grandson, Caleb. And since I was teaching the 4th message in our series" Love Jesus," I felt it was fitting to share some family history, one of my dad’s favorite songs. Its starts off with the words…

My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine;

For Thee all the follies of sin I resign.

My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou;

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

The song was originally written as a devotional poem by William Featherston, a teenager who had recently come to faith. Not much is known about Featherston, except that he attended a Wesleyan Methodist church in Montreal and that he was young when he wrote the poem, maybe just 16 years old. He understood the mercy of  Jesus - that Jesus took initiative and caused us to be born again. 

I love Thee because Thou has first loved me,

And purchased my pardon on Calvary’s tree.

I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow;

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

Featherston mailed the little poem to his aunt in Los Angeles. She thought, "This needs to be published!" Somehow, the poem made its way to England where it was published anonymously in The London Hymn Book.

Featherston lived just a few years after he wrote the poem. He died when he was 27. Maybe he somehow instinctively knew that death was coming soon for him, but that death would never be able to separate him from the love of Christ and that death would never be able stop him from loving Jesus because he wrote...

I’ll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death,

And praise Thee as long as Thou lendest me breath;

And say when the death dew lies cold on my brow,

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

Adoniram Judson Gordon, who founded Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, was compiling a hymn book. He liked Featherstone's text, but decided it needed a better tune than the one that was used in The London Hymn Book. So, in 1876, 3 years after Featherston died, he wrote a new tune that he published in a hymn book called The Service of Song. It's the tune still used  today. 

A teenager who loved Jesus wrote a poem that we are still singing 150 years later. Featherston is still singing about his great love for Christ.

In mansions of glory and endless delight,

I’ll ever adore Thee in heaven so bright;

I’ll sing with the glittering crown on my brow;

If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.

A young man simply wrote a poem one night about his love for Jesus and that poem has, unbeknownst to him, encouraged millions. 

Question: In what way could you - today - express your love for Jesus?