Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing

There is something about old hymns that I love.  I like the new praise and worship songs but there are a few songs from the hymnal that I hope will never be lost.

One of my favorites that has been on my mind lately and one that I get excited about singing in church is Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing.  It was written by Methodist pastor and hymnist Robert Robinson in 1757 at the age of 22. It started out as a five stanza hymn but was revised to the three stanza hymn we are most familiar with today.

1. Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

2. Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by Thy help I'm come;

And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger, 
Interposed His precious blood.

3. O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grade now like a fetter, 
Bind my wondering heart to Thee, 
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

In the first verse, it speaks of the overflowing blessing that come from our God and asks that our hearts and ears be "tuned" and for God to "teach" us so we can see all that he provides - unending grace, mercy and unending love.

The second verse mentions an Ebenezer in 1 Samuel 7:12 we find out what an Ebenezer is "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen.  He named it Ebenezer, saying, "Thus far the Lord has helped us".  An Ebenezer is a stone of help.  It was at this place that the Israelite's repented and recommitted their hearts and minds to God and Samuel marked the place with a stone so that everyone would remember that day - their new beginning.  It is the same today for us as we wonder aimlessly living for ourselves, moving further away from God but God never leaves our side.  He continues to patiently waiting for us to come home by Jesus' "precious blood".  In those moments at difficult times or at rock bottom,  as we return our focus on Jesus and his promises and repent, he marks those times on our hearts and we those places (raising our Ebenezer) so that we will never forget that God is always with us and our source for life.

The third verse is our shout out to God to take our hearts and bind them to his - so we will never leave his presence...make His ways our ways, make His thoughts our thoughts.  It's a big plea to God because we are not perfect and "prone to wander...prone to leave the God I love"...prone as Paul wrote to do what I do not want to do.  We should start each morning praying to God "Here's my heart, O take and seal it, Seal for Thy courts above."

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I changed up the music on the side bar and there are a couple of different versions of "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing" by different artists.  Take a few minutes and listen to a song written over 255 years ago - pretty sure Taylor Swifts song won't last that long.