My Favorite Hymn on Coming to the Lord in His Word

One of the most helpful ways to prepare your heart to contact the Lord in His word is to speak and sing hymns and spiritual songs (Col. 3:16). I often do this in my time with the Lord in the morning. In this post I’ll share my favorite hymn for this purpose.

But, not every hymn or spiritual song will usher you into a personal and intimate touch with the Lord in His Word. I look for those which are enlightened prayers put into poetic form.

My favorite hymn for coming to the Lord in His Word, is “I Come to Thee Dear Lord”  by Witness Lee.

In this post I’ll also illustrate how you can use this hymn to practice coming to the Lord in His word.

My Favorite Hymn on Coming to the Lord in His Word

First, come to the Lord with a thirst for Him

The first stanza of this hymn says,

I come to Thee, dear Lord,
My heart doth thirst for Thee;
Of Thee I’d eat, of Thee I’d drink.
Enjoy Thee thoroughly.

This stanza directs our heart to the Lord. It is an echo of His cry in John 7:37, “If anyone thirst, let him come to Me and drink.”

Let’s make this our attitude in reading the Bible.  Just come to the Lord, to contact God Himself.

Then ask the Lord to make you thirsty for Him.  Claim the psalmists aspiration in Psalm 42:1-2, “As the hart pants / after the streams of water, / So my soul pants, / For You, O God, /My soul thirst for God, for the living God. / When will I come and appear before God?”

In contrast, the Lord Jesus, in John 5:39-40, told the persecuting religionists of His day,

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.”

From my personal testimony of over twenty years, I never met a man with so much thirst for the Lord as the author of this hymn. He lived the reality of what he wrote in this hymn.

Second, cry to behold the Lord’s face and long to drink of Him

Stanza two goes on to say,

Just to behold Thy face,
For this my heart doth cry;
I deeply long to drink of Thee
My thirst to satisfy.

The prayer expressed in this hymn develops in stanza two from coming to the Lord to crying to behold the Lord.

This was the hearts longing of Mary the Magdalene, as she sat weeping in that garden cemetery on that early morning of the day of Christ’s resurrection. She could only be satisfied to see Jesus, to hear His voice, to contact Him personally.

Let’s cry out to behold the Lord Jesus, that we may drink of Him to satisfy our thirst. Calling on His name, “Lord Jesus!” is the best crying out.

Third, delight to see His face, abide in Him and behold Him constantly

Then stanza three says,

Thy glorious, radiant face
My heart delights to see;
Here I’d abide and ne’er depart,
Beholding constantly.

Make seeing our Lord’s glorious radiant face your delight. Then pray to abide here and not depart, even beholding constantly.

In 2 Corinthians 3:18, Paul testified to such a personal experience,

“We all with unveiled face beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”

Constant beholding progressively changes us; it inwardly transforms us to Christ’s image, from one degree of glory to a further degree of glory.

Let’s make this constant beholding our pursuit in coming to the Lord!

Fourth, be gladdened, filled with, and rest in the Lord

Then stanza four says,

In such a fellowship
Thou, Lord, art grace to me;
My heart and spirit gladdened, filled,
I enter rest in Thee.

Here we have the issue. From such a constant beholding in fellowship, the Lord becomes grace to us, gladdens our heart, fills our spirit, and ushers us into rest in Him.

Fifth, linger here, seeking Him, continuing in the Word, till He flows through you

Finally, stanza five says,

Lord, I would linger here,
Still seeking after Thee,
Continue in the Word and prayer
Till Thou dost flow thru me.

In this final stanza, we linger in the Lord, still seeking after Him.

That we “continue in the Word and prayer” indicating that this whole progression is in the sphere of our contact with the Word by means of prayer.

This means that our coming to God’s word should be our coming to the Lord because He Himself is God’s living Word  (John 1:1; 1 John 1:1-2). Then as we linger, continuing in the written word by means of prayer, the Lord flows through us.

It is interesting to note that such a hymn is under the category of the “Study of the Word—Feeding on the Word.” May our reading and study of the Bible be with such an attitude of  contacting God Himself, coming to receive Him as our life supply, by continuing in the Word with prayer.

Points to practice in your fellowship with the Lord in His Word:

• Ask the Lord to give you the desire for times in His Word that are increasingly in this progression.
• Simply begin by coming to to the Lord in the Word with a thirst for Him. Ask Him to make you thirsty.
• Press on to behold Him in the Word, then to abiding and beholding Him constantly.
• Continue to be filled with Him to the extent that you enter rest in Him.
• Linger in fellowship with Him in His Word until He flows through you.

May all our daily times in the Lord’s word enter into such a divine progression of intimacy.

If you’ve been enlightened by this post, turn it into your personal prayer to the Lord. Also, take a moment to share what you’ve enjoyed in a comment.

References:

• “I Come to Thee Dear Lord” by Witness Lee  can be found as Hymn # 812 in Hymns, published by Living Stream Ministry.
• You can listen to it online at Hymnal.net and click on “view lyrics” to read the words.