I LOVE TO HEAR OF JESUS

I love to hear of Jesus

Because He set me free,

And dying at Golgotha

He gave Himself for me;

Because when I was sinful

He suffered in my stead;

And since, in grace and mercy,

His precious blood was shed.

I love to think of Jesus

The Man who holds my heart

Because of all the blessings

It pleased Him to impart:

He gave me free forgiveness,

He gave me love and grace,

He gave his Holy Spirit

And gives me His embrace.

I love to speak of Jesus

With those who love Him well,

To trace His many glories

Who is Emmanuel,

The Son of God, the Firstborn,

Our Shepherd and our Friend,

The First, the Last, the Living,

Our Peace, our Life, our End.

I love to sing of Jesus

The Man upon God's throne

Whilst waiting for His coming

To rapture all His own

To share with Him the glory

That time can never dim:

Eternally delighted,

Eternally with Him!

FRAGMENT

Unarranged, the sensations

Suck by my senses to

My "faulty sensory perception".

Within, further confusion,

The sense of humour

Disarranging.

From the core

The sense of sny

Deranged.

O wretched man that I am!

Who shall deliver me

From this body of death?

If what I need is a Deliverer

What I gain also

Is a Master.

If what I need is an Escape

What I gain

Is also a Lord.

If what I need is a Resource

What I have

Is a Head also.

WILDERNESS

Wanderings, tergiversations, vacillations.

I have trodden the wilderness,

Thirsted, hungered and murmured:

Stumbled back towards Egypt

(Through grace moated by the Sea);

Plunged headlong to Hormah

To force the land in my strength,

And trawled through sand and rock:

Even, in some seasons, followed

The Ark to our resting place.

For I have tasted the grapes of Eshcol

And seen in spirit the fertile land:

Milk and honey are to my taste:

And I, like Caleb, have the land in my heart.

But more - I know the One

Who bore me to this waste

Will plant me in His mountain,

His fixed and purposed place.

THE SPIRIT

Into obedient person

The Spirit is received;

Within obedient persons

The Spirit is ungrieved.

"WE WORSHIP WHAT WE KNOW"

As Thou dost come amongst Thine own

To draw together every heart

Which Thou through love hast set aglow,

Lord, recognising who Thou art

"We worship what we know".

Since Thou, the Comforter, hast come

To link us with the realms above

While we are pilgrims here below,

Responding to Thy well proved love,

"We worship what we know".

Father, as Thou hast been declared

And Thou Thyself hast been revealed

In Him who comes to us to show

Thy love to those the Spirit sealed

"We worship what we know".

Although Thou art beyond our thought

Dwelling in uncreated light

To Thee, O God, our praise flow:

Brought near to be for Thy delight

"We worship what we know".

IMPRESSIONS

To us whom sin had made uncouth,

Leprous, and dumb, and deaf, and blind,

Whom Satan could bewitch,

A man has come in grace and truth

To spread His blessing to mankind:

Through Him we are made rich.

He walked in constant consciousness

That if He was to make us free,

Atone, redeem, and save

He must endure man’s callousness,

Face God’s full wrath upon the tree,

And lie within the grave.

Risen He showed unchanging grace,

With shepherding and tender care

For those who were His own:

And God has given Him a place

At His right hand, where He will share

The glories of the throne.

The Holy Spirit, Paraclete,

Absorbs us with the heavenly Man

And things that are above;

Until His workings are complete

As linked with heavenly realms He can

Bring tokens of Christ’s love.

Praise God who helps us to behold

The moral glories of the Lord

To make the bitter sweet!

Praise God who forms the city’s gold

And draws our hearts with one accord

Till all things are complete!

"HE SHALL BE GREAT"

"He shall be great":

Great Shepherd of the sheep,

Whom God brought from among the dead,

By whom His sheep are borne and fed -

"He shall be great".

"He shall be great":

Great Priest within God's house

Who in His manhood supersedes,

Yet gives us help in all our needs -

"He shall be great".

"He shall be great":

Great King and Lord of all -

The lowly Babe of Bethlehem

Shall reign in God's Jerusalem -

"He shall be great".

PARABLE

The vital water, silting and moistening,

Compounds the good ground.

The fecund seed, broadcast on the earth

Clung in the good ground.

The theivish birds jibbed at the nets

Shielding the good ground.

Roots writhed down, toward the procreant water

Imbuing the good ground.

Toward the sun sprouts pullulate

Out from the good ground.

Master, garner the mellow fruit

From your good ground.

SHEPHERD

Lord Jesus, Thou art the Good Shepherd

Who laid down His life for the sheep;

That joy might be known

By all of Thine own

Thy sorrow was bitter and deep.

Lord Jesus, Thou art the Great Shepherd

Whom God brought again from the dead;

Since Thou art alive

Thy flock now may thrive

As skillfully nourished and led.

Lord Jesus, Thou art the Chief Shepherd-

The first place in all things is Thine;

When Thou dost appear

And we are drawn near

Thy love will unfadingly shine.

FREE

When I was bound by sin

And far, O Lord, from Thee

In love, alone, Thou didst atone

Thy blood has set me free.

Abiding in Thy word

Which comes in grace to me

And following on where Thou hast gone -

The truth has set me free.

Within the Father's house

Where I through Christ may be

I am at home to gladly roam -

The Son has set me free.

HYMN TO THE LORD JESUS

Praise the One who is Creator,

Heaven's and earth's Originator

Yet come near as Mediator

Between God and man.

Praise the Christ who as a stranger

Once was cradled in a manger,

Come in flesh to be the changer

Of the course of time.

Praise the Man who here was sowing

Seed from which good seed is growing

In abundance overflowing

To the Father's joy

Praise the Shepherd who has sought us:

With His precious blood He bought us,

With His tender arms he brought us

Back into His fold.

Praise the Victor who invaded

Realms where Satan's might pervaded;

Now no power we are persuaded

Separates from Him.

Praise the Man who God perfected

For the work which He effected -

Now He leads the Sons selected

To a glorious sphere.

Praise the Firstborn of creation

End of all man's perturbation

Bringing reconciliation

As the Prince of Peace.

"Perturbation" not only has the sense "the state of being perturbed" but, metaphorically, "a deviation in the course of a celestial body".

VOICE

We hear the Bridegroom's voice

In love towards His own;

Delighting in His tender tone

Our hearts rejoice.

We've heard the Son of God

Which woke us from the dead

Since then the path where Christ has led

By faith we've trod.

The Son of Man will call

The dead in Christ to rise -

The Lord will have the saints, His prize:

Fruit from the fall.

But now our better choice

Is sitting at His feet

And finding for ourselves how sweet

The Bridegroom's voice.

HIS SAINTS

They have enrolled in that grand company

"The dead in Christ": the saints who gave God pleasure

From Abel onward; who served faithfully,

Spoke often of Him, and became His treasure.

They laboured for the Lord and for His own

As He Himself delighted to record

Till in His love and wisdom they have known

The blessedness of dying "in the Lord".

Jesus they loved and spoke with day by day

Since He had laid His life down for His sheep:

Enduring death, He took death's sting away:

He touched them, and through Him they are asleep.

Behold He comes! They will arise to meet

With all His own at that exalted tryst

And in transformed, immortal bodies greet

Our glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

(Written on the occasion of the death of two of the Lord's servants within a short period of one another.)

THERE IS A MAN UPON THE FATHER'S THRONE

(Villanelle)

There is a Man upon the Father's throne

Sufficient for the glory of that place

Dispensing power and blessing to His own.

He who could dwell in unseen light alone

Outwith the scope of human mind or space,

There, is a Man - upon the Father's throne.

That God and all His mercy might be known

He was on earth among the weak and base

Dispensing power and blessing to His own.

Since on the cross He suffered to atone

And opened wide the floodgates of God's grace

There is a Man upon the Father's throne.

The might of sin and death is overthrown

And Christ is Leader of a heavenly race

Dispensing power and blessing to His own.

Soon all His grace and glory will be shown

And we shall see the beauty of His face.

There is a Man upon the Father's throne

Dispensing power and blessing to His own.

GRACE AND MERCY

From currents where I used to rove

The bands of grace and mercy hove

My battered barque to Christ's safe cove.

As in God's ways it may behove

My steps to go harsh ways I prove

Christ's grace and mercy as I move.

Thus grace and mercy from above

Cocoon me closely as a glove

While in my heart I know Christ's love.

COUPLET

One Person of the Deity said, “Lo

I come...” before another told Him, “Go”.

SPEAKING

God in His goodness

– The medium is the message –

Has spoken in Son

HYMN

(An imitation)

The Judge enthroned on high,

One God who made all things;

He is the Lord of kings,

The Judge enthroned on high.

Sweet in heaven’s citadel

He makes the light descend;

Beginning and the End

Sweet in heaven’s citadel.

All things make manifest

His power, with one accord;

The holy King our Lord

All things make manifest.

Man’s error turned and fled

When Christ the Healer came;

When Christ bore sin and shame

Man’s error turned and fled.

The Father’s chosen One

Has challenged death alone;

He is upon the throne

The Father’s chosen One.

The beaten serpent groans

And Christ is Lord of all;

While heaven’s beams enthrall

The beaten serpent groans.

Good folk in sweet repose

Enjoy their endless rest;

By those the Lord is blessed

Good folk in sweet repose.

Raising their faithful words

They voice their royal songs:

Behold the heavenly throngs

Raising their faithful words.

To Thee, majestic Lord,

With stately songs they sing;

Unceasing praise they bring

To Thee, majestic Lord!

DAYS

This is One to whom personally

Servitude to time could not apply -

One who inhabits eternity. Yet

His love constrained Him to this thirlage.

He took part in our habitat,

Days. He slept in them, woke in them,

In them moved, ate, carpentered.

Daily He absorbed the Father’s voicing.

One day the word directed Him towards

Jordan; one day to the wilderness.

Each of the days of the Son of Man

Was distinguished, although He is the Same.

And there were nights too – healing

Or praying. Until there came the night

When He was delivered up. And the day

When over His suffering daylight was withheld.

Time knows no day like that day -

Denial at cockcrow, injustice early,

Scourging, nailing, hanging, suffering:

And the secret sorrow the sun did not lighten.

Energy charged the resurrection day -

The Risen One gave to Mary

Revelation, to Simon restoration,

To two wanderers a Shepherd’s care.

From the day when He was received up in glory

We wait in the patience of the Christ until

His vindication: when the world takes moral direction

From that Sun in the day of Jesus Christ.

CROSS

There is no shadow

Now to the cross, since the sun

Is at noon to it.

To the cross there is

No shadow now, since on it

The sun is at noon.

Since the sun is at

Noon to it there is now no

Shadow to the cross.

CLOTHING

The first clothes maker,

God, acted – and faith can see

Someone must suffer.

SHEEP

“The firstlings of His flock” -

In choiceness God introduced

In His word, the sheep.

He brings soon to our view

The ram’s vigour,

Entrapping it to His will.

He shows us His yearling

Whose blood is cover

And whose flesh sustains.

And if our weakness

Attains to a sucking lamb only

He accepts it as a whole burnt-offering.