How Lovely Shines The Morning Star
How Lovely Shines the Morning Star
How lovely shines the Morning Star!
The nations see and hail afar
The light in Judah shining.
Thou David’s Son of Jacob’s race,
My Bridegroom and my King of Grace,
For Thee my heart is pining.
Lowly, Holy, Great and glorious,
Thou victorious Prince of graces,
Filling all the heav’nly places.
Now richly to my waiting heart,
O Thou, my God, deign to impart
The grace of love undying.
In Thy blest body let me be,
E’en as the branch is in the tree,
Thy life my life supplying.
Sighing, crying, for the savor
Of Thy favor; resting never
Till I rest in Thee forever.
Thou, mighty Father, in Thy Son
Didst love me ere Thou hadst begun
This ancient world’s foundation.
Thy Son hath made a friend of me,
And when in spirit Him I see,
I joy in tribulation.
What bliss is this! He that liveth
To me giveth Life forever;
Nothing me from Him can sever.
Composite Translation
WHEN PHILIPP NICOLAI was a pastor in Unna, Germany, an awful plague hit the town. His window overlooked the cemetery. There were sometimes as many as thirty burials in a single day. It seemed that every home in the town was mourning for a stricken family member. It was a difficult time to be a pastor. How did he get through it?
“There seemed to me nothing more sweet, delightful, and agreeable,” Nicolai wrote, “than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night.” Christ enlarges our scope of vision. We serve Him as much as possible here on earth, but we realize there’s another chapter to come, an eternal existence in heaven with Him.
[Jesus] went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This fulfilled what God said through the prophet Isaiah: “In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.”
Matthew 4:13-16
From the book
