JESUS LOVES ME:
SAME TUNE, DIFFERENT WORDS!
By Pastor Max Solbrekken, D.D.
When Donna and I visited with the Rev. Jack Williams and his sister Marge in Nanaimo
Although he was 95 years of age, he had a hard time convincing them that he should be allowed to move in. They thought that he was far too active and fit to occupy space among them!
Jack has a wonderful memory and recited several poems he used when he spoke to various senior citizen audiences. When I told him that I enjoyed the senior version of the song ‘Jesus Loves Me’, he wrote it out for me.
JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW!
Jesus loves me this I know
Though my hair is white as snow
Though my sight is growing dim
Still he bids me trust in Him
Though my steps are, oh so slow
With my hand in His I’ll go
On through life, let come what may
He’ll be there to lead the way
Though I am no longer young
I have much, which He’s begun
Let me serve Christ with a smile
Go with others, the extra mile
When the night is dark and long
In my heart, He puts a song
Telling me in words so clear
“Have no fear, for I am here!
When my work on earth is done
And life’s victories have been won
He will take me home Above
Then, I’ll understand His love
I love Jesus, does He know
Have I ever told Him so?
Jesus loves to hear me say
That I love Him every day!
Unfortunately, I do not know the author of this beautiful rendition of the children’s song we all love so much! The beauty and grandeur of the Gospel is that God cares for us all whether we are very young or very old or somewhere in between! Praise His holy name forever!
Here is another of Jack’s beautiful poems that encourages us not to capitulate to the thought that we are no longer relevant or productive or needed in this world, after we have begun collecting our ‘old-age pension’.
We have a lot more to give to our children, grandchildren, friends and others, who desperately need the saving power of Jesus’ blood and the divine healing that He purchased for us on Pilate’s Whipping Pole and Calvary ’s old rugged Cross!
NOT GROWING OLD
By John E. Roberts
They say that I am growing old; I’ve heard them tell it times untold,
In language plain and bold …But I am NOT growing old!
This frail old shell in which I dwell, Is growing old, I know full well…
But I am not the shell.
What if my hair is turning grey? Grey hairs are honourable they say.
What if my eyesight’s growing dim? I can still see to follow Him
Who sacrificed His life for me, Upon the cross of Calvary .
What should I care if Time’s old plow, Has left its furrows on my brow
Another house, not made with hands, Awaits me in the Glory Land
What though I falter in my walk? What though my tongue refuse to talk?
I still can tread the narrow way, I still can watch, and praise and pray,
My hearing may not be as keen, As in the past it may have been,
Still, I can hear my Saviour say, In whispers soft, “This is the way.”
The outward man, do what I can, To lengthen out this life’s short span,
Shall perish and return to dust, As everything in nature must.
The inward man, the Scriptures say, Is growing stronger every day
Then how can I be growing old, When safe within my Saviour’s fold?
Ere long my soul shall fly away, And leave this tenement of clay;
This robe of flesh I’ll drop, and rise, To meet the ‘everlasting prize’
I’ll meet you on the streets of gold, And prove that I’m not growing old.”
Speaking about growing old, Will Rogers stated: “Some people want to turn back their odometers, but I don’t. I want people to know why I look like this. I have traveled down a lot of roads and many of them weren’t paved!” Then he asked this question: “How did I get over the hill without seeing the top?”
HOW YOUNG ARE YOU?
On his 75th birthday (Jan. 26, 1955) General Douglas MacCarthur made this outstanding statement:
“Youth is not entirely a time of life – it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips or supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions… nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals.
“You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair.
In the central place of the heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives a message of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long you are young. When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snow of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old.”
THE GREATEST THOUGHT!
In ‘Billy Graham: Personal Thoughts of a Public Man, Thirty Years of Conversations with David Frost’ we find this beautiful nugget:
I once asked Billy Graham what his goal was when he took the pulpit. He replied: “First of all I want the content to be accurate. I want it to be Biblical and I want it to be simple.”
I pressed him: ‘Can’t a message be too simple?’
“When Dr. Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian. The greatest theologian of his generation, was visiting America
The students thought some tremendous statement was coming forth and they were all on the edge of their seats and he said, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so!”
YES, JESUS IS HERE!
Pastor T.B. Barrett, the founder of the Filadelfia Pentecostal Church in Oslo , was the man that God used to bring the Full Gospel Message to Norway Scandinavia .
I
In the summer of 1968, I was invited by the great Evangelist / Pastor Knut Petersen to preach in T.B. Barrett’s old Church seating 2,500. Usually, Oslo
KNUT PETERSEN remarked: “It was so hot that you could fry a fly on the wall, but hardly anyone left for their vacation. They didn’t want to miss what God was doing in Filadelfia!”
While I was in Oslo Lydia
Being a teenager, I was interested in overhearing their conversation. The Pastor whispered in her ear, “I am going to preach on the subject of ‘Holiness’ tonight, dear. Do I have your permission?” She answered: “Yes, my husband. You have my permission!”
That speaks volumes to me. We must always strive to practice what we preach. He knew that if anyone would know if his life measured up to his message, it was his wife.
During her last conversation with her husband before he died, his wife Lydia
What a glorious Gospel we have been given by our Lord to proclaim far and wide, the Gospel of God’s mercy, love and grace! On the 75th Anniversary of his Ordination, a Gospel Minister stated unequivocally: “God cannot stop loving us.”
My good friend Jack Williams - Apostle to the B.C Indians – is now with the Lord. He passed away a few years ago and is with his beloved Irma who predeceased him earlier.
It is true: Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so! Amen.
