Hymns

Garden of Prayer!

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Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” Matthew 25:36 NKJV

When Hurricane Milton passed through, everyone in our area, including all the residents at Life Care Center, were evacuated. This first service since we returned featured a new appreciation for how God preserved us and brought us back together. There is no better hymn to sing in celebration than “The Beautiful Garden of Prayer.” We passed through a time of anxiety, difficulty and testing and as we prayed, God drew us closer to His heart and deeper into the Beautiful Garden of Prayer! “The lyrics for The Beautiful Garden of Prayer were written by Eleanor Schroll and first published in 1920. The wonderful lilting melody was composed by James Filmore. This little-known hymn is one of my favorites and it reminds me of when Jesus invited His disciples to join Him in prayer, in the Garden of Gethsemane. Though they did not know it, this was the last time they would be able to pray with Jesus before His crucifixion. That invitation remains today for all of us who follow Christ. He is already in the garden, and He is calling us to join Him. No matter what situation we are facing, He will open the gates and welcome us to kneel by His side and pray. Won’t you come to His side whether in praise or in sorrow and tarry there an hour? What better place could we ever wait, than in the presence of the Savior?

Surrender All!

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When Robert E. Lee surrendered at the Appomattox courthouse in 1865, Ulysses S. Grant didn’t want to hear, “I surrender some.” and neither does Jesus. But just as our country began to heal and become stronger than ever before, so it is when we surrender to Jesus. He hasn’t given HIs life to destroy ours, but to give us an abundant eternal life both in Heaven and for the time we have to serve Him here on earth. Why not surrender you all to Jesus today!

Living Water

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But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:14 ESV

The first stanza of the hymn “Springs of Living Water,” begins with the words, “I thirsted in the barren land of sin and shame.” Now, certainly every one of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus have been there at one time or another. The worst part of that time in the desert was that we were dying of thirst with no idea that we needed water. But our barren lands are not always limited to sin and shame. This morning some of us are wandering in the barren land of grief, a failed marriage or a life changing health issue. And just like the woman in today’s verse, we are trying to fill our thirst at a well that is filled with only a temporary solution. The good news is that Jesus is sitting by our well of temporary solutions and He offers us His gift of Living Water. The difference between His gift and what is in our well, is that while our water quenches thirst, it lasts only for a moment. The water that Jesus offers will become a well inside of us that will flow out to others. By grace His Living Water can pour out through us to others who are grieving, to people sitting alone or abandoned. The gift that Jesus gives, becomes Living Water not only to us, but through us for others and where “thirsting spirits can be satisfied” God will get all the glory!

For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants. Isaiah 44:3 ESV