The Story Behind the Song
Thomas O. Chisholm (1866-1960) once described himself as “just an old shoe.” (See “The Story Behind the Song” for Great Is Thy Faithfulness for a brief biography of Chisholm.) But not many old shoes have their own entry in the Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology alongside such luminaries as Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and Fanny J. Crosby.
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Over the course of his lifetime, Chisholm wrote more than 1,200 devotional poems, many of which were set to music to be sung as hymns. The hymnology website hymnary.org lists 273 of his texts which have been published in a wide variety of hymnals and collections. By far the best known are the previously mentioned Great Is Thy Faithfulness (published in 154 books) and Living for Jesus (141 instances). Some of his texts have been translated into Spanish, German, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic.
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Living for Jesus has an unusual backstory. It begins with a tune, not lyrics. In 1915, C. Harold Lowden, a composer, organist and editor, wrote Sunshine Song, a children’s hymn. Two years later, he was compiling hymns for a collection he was going to publish when he was reminded of his simple song. He was impressed that the tune needed a more mature text, so he gave it a new name, Living for Jesus (based on Acts 17:28, “For in him [Jesus] we live, and move, and have our being”), and sent the tune and the new title to Chisholm, asking him to write a text that fit the tune and title.
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When he received the tune, Chisholm balked at the request. He returned the music to Lowden, saying that he had never “made a poem to order” before and did not think he could do it. But Lowden was persistent, telling Chisholm he believed that God had led him to select Chisholm to write the new text. Impressed by the earnestness of Lowden’s appeal, Chisholm set to work and soon produced the four stanzas (only three are usually published) and refrain which have been sung for more than a century.
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Living for Jesus is a song of action and movement, not passivity. It contains many strong, active verbs—living, striving, yielding, bearing, seeking, bringing—a good reminder that living a Christ-honoring life requires a commitment on our part to doing good deeds that bring glory to God. Each stanza begins with the same phrase, “Living for Jesus…,” and the refrain that follows each stanza ends with the same thought—“My life I give…to live, O Christ, for Thee alone.”
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The hymn echoes a theme that permeated the Apostle Paul’s epistles. In four different letters to four distinct churches, Paul wrote of the Christian’s responsibility to live a life yielded to the Lordship of Christ:
- Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that…you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Phil. 1:27)
- I…urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Eph. 4:1-3)
- I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)
- We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (Col. 1:9-12)
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Billy Graham once said a Christian has “…chosen to give your life to Christ rather than to self. You are serving Christ rather than self. Self no longer controls your life, but Christ controls your life. That is a choice which you deliberately made.” Have you made that deliberate, volitional choice? Are you walking in a manner worthy of the Lord? Are you living for Jesus?
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Anastasia Music 