More Love To Thee, O Christ / Prentiss / Doane
More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to Thee!
Hear Thou the prayer I make on bended knee.
This is my earnest plea: More love, O Christ, to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
Once earthly joy I craved, sought peace and rest;
Now Thee alone I seek, give what is best.
This all my prayer shall be: More love, O Christ to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
Let sorrow do its work, send grief and pain;
Sweet are Thy messengers, sweet their refrain,
When they can sing with me: More love, O Christ, to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
Then shall my latest breath whisper Thy praise;
This be the parting cry my heart shall raise;
This still its prayer shall be: More love, O Christ to Thee;
More love to Thee, more love to Thee!
Speak, Lord, your words to my heart for your servant is listening. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. I read Romans 4:18-25:
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
My Understanding: When Abraham (then he was called Abram) was 75 years old, God called him to leave his country and his people and to go to the land that God would show him. Then, God promised to make him into a great nation and that he would bless him and would make his name great. So, Abraham did what God told him to do. A little while later, the LORD God visited Abraham again and he told him to lift up his eyes from where he was standing and to look in every direction. Then God told him that all the land that he saw, God was going to give it to him and to his offspring (Abraham was childless then). God said he would make Abraham’s offspring like the “dust of the earth,” referring to the number of descendants that Abraham would have. He then told him to walk the length and the breadth of the land that God was giving to him and to his offspring. Abraham then obeyed God.
Sometime later, God visited Abraham in a vision. At this time, God told Abraham that he was going to have a son coming from his own body who would be his heir, i.e. he told him this because Abraham thought that his servant would be his heir since he was childless. Then, God told Abraham to look at the stars in the heavens and to count them, if he could, because his offspring would be as countless as the stars. This is where the scripture says that “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6).
About ten years passed between the time God first visited Abraham and told him that he was going to make him into a great nation. During that time, God promised him the land, he promised him offspring as countless as the dust of the earth and the stars in the heavens, and he told him specifically that he would have a son that would come from his own flesh. In those ten years, Abraham and Sarah had no children. So, one day, Sarah approached Abraham and offered her maidservant to Abraham to be his wife and to bear him children. Abraham agreed, Hagar became his wife and bore him a son, Ishmael.
Another thirteen years passed after Ishmael was born to Abraham and Hagar. Abraham was now 99 years old. The LORD appeared to Abraham again and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers” (Gen. 17:1-2). God then gave instructions to Abraham concerning his covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the sign of which was to be circumcision. And then God spoke to Abraham about Sarah: “I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her… Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac” (Gen. 17:16, 19).
So, Abraham, at the age of 100, and Sarah, at the age of 90, gave birth to their son, Isaac. Isaac had a son named Jacob, who was later named Israel, and through him came what we know to be the nation of Israel, then Jesus Christ, and then spiritual Israel - the true church, the Body of Christ - his new covenant people. So, spiritual Israel, i.e. true believers in Jesus Christ, is now God’s chosen and kingdom people and the only ones to inherit the promise of eternal life in heaven with God.
That history should help us to better understand the passage in Romans 4 concerning how Abraham, against all hope, believed God, and so became the father of many nations, including Gentile nations. This passage says that Abraham 1) did not weaken in his faith, even though he and his wife, Sarah, were past childbearing age; 2) he did not waver through unbelief concerning the promises of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God; and 3) he was fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised. And, this is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Ok, this is an interesting statement about a man who, ten years after God promised him a son from his own body, took his wife’s advice and took Hagar as his wife and had a son with her. The scriptures also record that Abraham, when told another thirteen years later that Sarah was to have a son, laughed to himself and asked if a man a hundred years old and a woman ninety years old could have a son. I have heard many sermons on this story of Abraham over the years that depicted that Abraham took matters into his own hands because he didn’t trust God enough, but that is contrary to this passage in Romans.
As I look at this historic picture of Abraham and compare it with Romans 4, I believe there is another way of looking at Abraham’s story. God promised Abraham the first time that he was going to be the father of many nations, then he told him that he would have offspring as countless as the dust of the earth and the stars in the sky, then he told him that the offspring would come from his own body and would not be a servant in his house, but at that point, the scriptures do not record that God told him that Sarah was to be the mother. So, it is reasonable to assume that Abraham acted in full faith and belief in God’s promise of an heir coming from his own body when he took Hagar to be his wife and she bore him a son. God didn’t tell Abraham until 13 years later that Sarah was to have the son.
The other thing of note is that, when Abraham learned that Sarah, at the age of ninety, and he, at the age of one hundred, were to give birth to a son, the scriptures said he laughed to himself and asked the question concerning them giving birth at such old ages. So, it does not appear he was questioning God but rather that he was perhaps just humored at the idea of them giving birth at such an old age. Even when he asked God if Ishmael could not be the heir, I don’t believe he was questioning God even then. I see it more that he was just being practical and/or was just trying to understand why Ishmael was not to be the heir.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says it this way: “Hearing this, Abraham laughed because it seemed incredible that a barren 90-year-old woman could give birth to a son. Abraham had assumed that his descendants would come through Ishmael.”
This makes sense, in light of what Romans 4 says about Abraham. What this says to me is that, even though Abraham was a man of faith, he believed in God’s promises, he heard God’s voice clearly, he obeyed God fully, his faith did not weaken and he did not waver in unbelief, and he was fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised, still Abraham was a human being and he saw “a poor reflection as in a mirror” and he “knew in part,” especially since God revealed his promise to Abraham one step at a time (See: I Co. 13:12). So, each step of the way, Abraham stepped out in faith on what he had heard God say and what he understood of God’s promises, even though his understanding was not yet complete and would not be until he saw God face to face in heaven.
So, I am encouraged by the life of Abraham, not only that he never wavered (vacillated; faltered; or was indecisive) in unbelief, that his faith never weakened, even in the face of impossible odds against him, that he was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, and that he was fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he had promised, but I am encouraged that he did not do this with absolute perfection and that he didn’t have perfect understanding, and that he, as well, saw only in part as we do, and he had to trust God even when he didn’t know the next step or even when he thought he understood what God meant but found out that isn’t the way God planned to do it.
His life, though, does teach us that we shouldn’t get ahead of God or make assumptions about how God is going to do something when we don’t have all the information needed to make a wise decision. We need to inquire of the Lord each and every step of the way to make sure, as much as is possible, that we are hearing God correctly and that we are obeying him to the best of our understanding. Yet even there, we must recognize that “we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Co. 4:7). God did not choose us because of our own human perfection. He chose us because of his great love for us, even while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
What God is looking for are those who are willing to obey Him in all things, and who will obey him even when it doesn’t make sense by natural human thinking and reasoning. He is looking for those who will step out in faith, even when we can’t see what the next step is. He chose humans to be his instruments, not because of our greatness, but because he could then show that the power comes from Him and not from us, for his power and strength are perfected in our weakness. That is why Abraham was fully persuaded that GOD had the power to do what he promised, because he realized that what God had promised him could only be done by the power of Almighty God. And, then it was God who got the glory.
In the song, More Love to Thee, O Christ, the poet expressed that she had once craved earthly joy, but now she sought God alone. She humbled herself before God on bended knee and she submitted to him and to his will for her life. She recognized that following the Lord would mean that sorrow, grief, and pain would be used of God in her life to do its work in her heart in melting and molding her into a vessel that God could use for his purposes and for his glory. The prayer and the plea of her heart was to love her Lord Jesus more and more, and the way she proved her love to him was first of all to forsake the cravings of her sinful nature and then to give Jesus Christ her life on the altar, fully surrendered and submitted to his will for her life, even submitting to pain. Her goal was that, even in her death, that the parting cry her heart would raise, and the prayer of her heart would still be, “More love, O Christ to Thee.” I echo the words of this song back in prayer to my Lord.
Abraham was a man who loved God, too. He believed God for what God told him that he was going to do, and he followed the Lord in faith and obedience as the proof of his love and his commitment in faith to the LORD, even against all hope. His love was proved by his actions – by his unwavering faith in God’s promises and in God’s power to do what he had promised. And, because of that kind of faith, God credited righteousness to him. This is the same kind of faith that God requires of those who believe in Jesus Christ – the kind the poet wrote about in the words to this song, and the kind that Abraham had. Both of them loved God and both of them desired to serve the Lord until death. And, their love and their commitment to the Lord was proved by what they did in obedience to their Lord. So, when we say that we love Jesus, and when we claim him as our Savior and our Lord, then our declared love and devotion to Him must be proved by our repentance and our obedience.
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