Today’s devotional: hymns that are “sermons unto themselves”
This morning’s devotional at Lifetime Guarantee Ministries is a bit different from the usual fare. In it, Bill Gillham simply suggests that we pay closer attention to the words of the hymns we sing each week at church—many of them are devotionals or sermons unto themselves!
Perhaps you will hear or sing one of these hymns on your next Easter Sunday. If you do, pay close attention to the words. So many of these hymns are a sermon unto themselves and more often than not, the theology is right on track.
From Rock of Ages by Augustus Montague Toplady, 1776
Not the labor of my hands
Can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save, and Thou alone.
He cites two other Easter hymns, one of them familiar to me and the other not. Read the rest of the devotional at Lifetime Guarantee Ministries.
I think Gillham raises an interesting point. We’re obviously meant to meditate on the lyrics to the worship songs we sing; but it’s easy to simply sing along to the music without putting any effort into processing the words. What other hymns or worship songs do you think stand apart as being “sermons unto themselves”?
