Every Christian denomination has them and if you are like me, you might even collect them. Within any church, the church hymnal plays an important part of the New Testament Christian worship service. In Paul’s letter to the church to the Ephesians he encourages Christians to allow songs of worship and praise to fill their hearts: Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19) and to the church at Colossi, he wrote Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord (Colossians 3:16). The singing of songs that honor God not only is accepted as a sacrifice by God, By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name (Hebrews 13:15) but is seen as something that truly does make a difference in our daily walk with God.
Since becoming active in my Christian faith back some twenty years ago, I never really paid much attention to the words of the congregational songs sung during the worship and praise parts of the service. I would simply stand, turn to the hymn that the song leader directed us to, and simply sang along – virtually the same thing that many of us do while listening to the radio. It wasn’t until 2006 that I began to really begin to pay attention to my walk with God that it dawned on me how radical a message is contained within any hymnal. A common song to every denomination, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, it has a simple tune, is fairly short, but contains a message as powerful as any sermon:
When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gains I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my God; all the vain things that charm me most – I sacrifice them to His blood.
See, from his head, his hands and feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down; did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown.
Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
Every time I sing this song it now feels more like a heartfelt prayer than actually singing a song. Even if I had all the world could offer me and if I did desire to give it all to the Lord, it still would never be enough of a sacrifice to repay the love that the Lord Jesus Christ showed to me on that old cross on Golgotha nearly two thousand years ago. This hymn is rich in imagery and portrays the cost of my salvation – the cruelest means of death that man had yet devised – as the means to purchase our redemption. The price that brought us true freedom is far more valuable than anything that we could possibly place any sort of value on here in this world that is tainted by sin.
