Faith Practice, the Exercise

Hymn Meditation

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Open Hymnal

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

  1. Love divine, all loves excelling,
    joy of heaven, to earth come down;
    fix in us thy humble dwelling;
    all thy faithful mercies crown!
    Jesus thou art all compassion,
    pure, unbounded love thou art;
    visit us with thy salvation;
    enter every trembling heart.
  2. Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit
    into every troubled breast!
    Let us all in thee inherit;
    let us find that second rest.
    Take away our bent to sinning;
    Alpha and Omega be;
    end of faith, as its beginning,
    set our hearts at liberty.
  3. Come, Almighty to deliver,
    let us all thy life receive;
    suddenly return and never,
    nevermore thy temples leave.
    Thee we would be always blessing,
    serve thee as thy hosts above,
    pray and praise thee without ceasing,
    glory in thy perfect love.
  4. Finish, then, thy new creation;
    pure and spotless let us be.
    Let us see thy great salvation
    perfectly restored in thee;
    changed from glory into glory,
    till in heaven we take our place,
    till we cast our crowns before thee,
    lost in wonder, love, and praise.
  • Love is a much overused word When Charles Wesley used the word, to what was he referring? He prayed fervently that every trembling heart my receive God’s love. How does that happen in such a loveless world?
  • How can God’s love be the end as well as the beginning of faith? How does God’s love give us liberty? What restricts our liberty when God’s love is not in us?
  • When Wesley says that we all receive God’s life, what does he mean? In a world where being a Christian means that people will think you are weird, why do people ceaselessly praise God anyway?
  • What is the new creation to which the hymn writer refers? Why is it incomplete at present? Where did Wesley find the image of people casting golden crowns to the ground? Why do they do that?
  • Does the fullness of God’s love live in you? How do you know? What difference does it make?

By Katherine Harms, author of Oceans of Love available for Kindle at Amazon.com.

Image: Open Hymnal Source:http://foter.com/
License: CC BY-NC-SA

3 thoughts on “Hymn Meditation”

  2. Thank you for the post. For more on Charles Wesley, I would like to invite you to the website for the book series, The Asbury Triptych Series. The trilogy based on the life of Francis Asbury, the young protégé of John Wesley and George Whitefield, opens with the book, Black Country. The opening novel in this three-book series details the amazing movement of Wesley and Whitefield in England and Ireland as well as its life-changing effect on a Great Britain sadly in need of transformation. Black Country also details the Wesleyan movement’s effect on the future leader of Christianity in the American colonies, Francis Asbury. The website for the book series is http://www.francisasburytriptych.com. Please enjoy the numerous articles on the website. Again, thank you, for the post.

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