“Himself”

“Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;

Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word;

Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own,

Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.”

Albert Benjamin Simpson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I ran across this old hymn the other day in a book I’m reading. It’s not a hymn I am familiar with, but the words are striking. The title of the hymn is called “Himself” and was written by a well-known churchman and theologian Albert B. Simpson (1843-1919). For me, I see in the hymn the progression of a believer’s walk with Christ from focus on self to focus on Christ. As I like to say, we all start somewhere, and it is usually here. Nothing wrong with that, but we eventually need to move from focus on the benefits of salvation for the self to the…