Hymn of the Week--Take my Life

"And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee."

Thus the Prayer Book, echoing, of course, Romans 12: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

And that biblical passage was certainly in the mind of Francis Havergal when he wrote "Take My Life."


Take my life and let it be
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee;
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love.

Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee;
Take my voice and let me sing,
Always, only for my King.

Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages from Thee;
Take my silver and my gold,
Not a mite would I withhold.

Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in endless praise;
Take my intellect and use
Every pow’r as Thou shalt choose.

Take my will and make it Thine,
It shall be no longer mine;
Take my heart, it is Thine own,
It shall be Thy royal throne.

Take my love, my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store;
Take myself and I will be
Ever, only, all for Thee.

Hymn sing night tonight at my home, and someone picked that, as someone usually does. We don't have all those same verses in our hymnal, but we have most of them.

I know, it's just a goal. One says, "Hey, here's a thought. Tomorrow I start out with that in mind. I say only those things Christ would want me to say. My voice is his voice. My lips are his lips. My hands are his hands, and so forth. What a concept." And, as Lewis said, within half an hour we are back in some old irritation or temper. Yet, that's the call. So we heed the call. Let us pray one for another that we may heed it well.