Love Lifted Me
A classic hymn that celebrates God's saving love, lifting us out of our sea of sin and bringing us safely to shore. Not much is known about the man who wrote the song, except that he wrote many hymns including this wonderful song of grace. Popular evangelists of the 20th century used his song extensively to bring home their message of God's offer for salvation.
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns! Today's Friday classic is an American favourite. I stumbled upon a YouTube channel that had an album called America's Favourite Hymns, and this was one of them. I vaguely know this song. I don't quite know how or why or where I learnt it, but it's somewhere in the back of my mind. I wonder where it is for you. If this is a popular song for you at your church, it seems like it's quite popular in America even today. I found some nice new modern recordings of this song and then some great old-fashioned ones with real honky-tonk gospel piano. Great song and a great message.
What stories do you have of Love Lifted Me? If you would share your memories and your impressions of the song in the comments below, I would love that. By the way, if you have any song that you'd particularly like me to do on this series, let me know in the comments. I'll have a look and see if any pop out. As always, please subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and a huge thank you to everyone who supports me on Patreon and on PayPal. I'm so grateful for your kindness.
Let's talk about today's Friday classic: Love Lifted Me.
The Story Behind "Love Lifted Me"
Not much is known about James Rowe, who wrote this song. He was born in Devonshire, England, but moved to the States at the age of 25 in 1890. James did various jobs, such as being a railway worker, but being a gifted songwriter, James started to put together some music journals, editing them and working for various publishing companies in the States. He was so good at writing that he actually started writing greeting cards as well, but hymn writing was his great love. He's said to have written over 19,000 hymns, although I can't find that many of them online. This was his one great song that has endured through the years. People still love singing his song, Love Lifted Me.
It was written in 1912 and was used extensively by Billy Sunday, who was the great evangelist of that time. Having written these words, James Rowe needed a tune for it, so he called his friend Howard Smith, who was an organist at a church in Connecticut. The story is that Smith was invited to Rowe's home, and Rowe stood there and tried to explain the words or read the words out. Together they tried to hum out a tune, and Smith pieced it together. This tune took shape—it's a really singable tune and has that real sound of the time.
Smith unfortunately developed crippling arthritis and had to stop playing in the church, which is sad. But the song became very popular, largely through Billy Sunday's evangelistic crusades. Over the years it stayed popular. Kenny Rogers in fact recorded a version in the 1970s, although his version changed the words slightly to become a bit secular, which is strange.
According to the United Methodist Church's website and the page they've got about this song, when they conducted a study in the 2000s for a new hymnal they were about to release, this came up as the number one most requested song to be put in the hymnal that wasn't in the last two. People had missed the song over the last 20 years when it wasn't in their recent hymnals, and they really wanted this to be part of the new hymnal so that they could sing it again.
James Rowe died in 1933, but his song lives on. Let's take a look at the words that he wrote that we love so much.
What Do the Lyrics of "Love Lifted Me" Mean?
We've got three verses and a chorus.
Verse 1
I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore.
Picture yourself way off in an ocean, sinking, struggling, fighting for your life. That's a picture of life without Christ. Often salvation is pictured as God saving us from drowning. He realised his sin was drowning him and he had no real peace.
Very deeply stained within, sinking to rise no more.
That's what sin does to us—it pulls us down so that you can't rise to the level that God wants you to, the life that God wants to bless you with.
But the Master of the sea heard my despairing cry. From the waters lifted me, now safe am I.
As I said, this picture of drowning without God's saving hand is a picture of life before salvation. You're drowning in your sin. Because of your sin, you can't rise up to the blessed life that God wants for you and the relationship that He wants with you. But the Master comes and saves us.
Doesn't this remind you a little bit of Peter when Jesus was walking on the water? He called Peter to Him, and Peter started to walk and then doubted and started to sink. Jesus said to him, "You have little faith. Why did you doubt?" In a sense, before we have faith, we're just sinking far more than Peter was. But Jesus comes and offers us our salvation, offers us His hand of salvation.
Here's the question: are you fighting His saving hand as He reaches down to save you? Are you saying, "No, I've got this, I can swim"? Or are you saying, "Yes, I need You to save me"? Many people think they can swim to shore themselves, that they'll be okay, that they don't need God to get them to the safe place. They don't realise that they're drowning. They don't realise that without the Saviour, they're going to sink.
Maybe today you need to reach out and grab the hand that has reached out to you and just relinquish that fight and let Him pull you up out of the water, and you'll be safe. I love that: now safe am I. When He lifts me out of the water.
Chorus
Love lifted me! Love lifted me! When nothing else could help, love lifted me!
That's important. It was not God trying to control you or God trying to manipulate you. It was love that offered you this saving hand.
When nothing else could help, love lifted me.
This is what it means to be a Christian, I guess—to realise nothing else can help me stop drowning. I can't do it myself. Nobody else can do it for me. It's only the love of Jesus and the loving hand that He reaches out to me that can save me.
Again I ask you: have you grabbed His hand? Are you still trying to fight your way to the shore of safety by yourself? Or have you realised that nothing else can help, but love will lift you? Love will save you. The love of Jesus alone can save.
There's a verse in the Bible that says we're not saved by our works, but we're saved by grace alone. We're not saved by our own effort, by our own religious effort even, but it's only His love and His grace that reaches us. Grab His hand. Grab His hand and let Him pull you out of the deep lake. Let Him pull you out of the overwhelming ocean of your sin and free you by His grace.
Verse 2
All my heart to Him I give, ever to Him I'll cling.
Now that He's saved me, I'll give Him everything, not holding anything back, but I'm clinging to Him always.
In His blessed presence live, ever His praises sing.
This is where some people miss the boat, to use the wrong phrase. They think that salvation is being pulled out by God and then they live their own life aside from Him, thinking at least He saved me from sinking, at least He saved me from hell. But that's not the only point of His salvation. He loved us and saved us so that we can live in His blessed presence and always be praising His name, because it's in praising His name that we find our greatest joy.
If you've taken His hand and let Him pull you out of the ocean, don't think you can now go walking and say, "Thank you, goodbye. At least now I'm safe from heaven. I don't have to now do anything Christian." No, it's now about living your life in His presence always, and that's a blessed thing. That's a wonderful thing. He's longing to live with you and love you. That's why He pulled you out.
Love so mighty and so true merits my soul's best songs.
I love that. This love that I've experienced, with Him pulling me up, merits my song. In other words, it earned praise. I'm going to sing as a result of what He's done. I'm going to give Him my best songs and my best voice and my best worship because of what He's done.
Faithful, loving service too, to Him belongs.
Yes, now that He's saved me, I'm going to live for Him. The order is important here. He didn't say, "Let me swim my way to shore and start working for God, and then hopefully I will have done enough for Him to love me." No, He loved me and He saved me by grace. Now I will live my life in faithful, loving service to Him because of His love.
Verse 3
Souls in danger, look above. Jesus completely saves. He will lift you by His love out of the angry waves.
If you've recognised today that without Him your soul's in danger, you can't fight your way to the shore yourself. No matter what a good person you are, no matter what good deeds you may have done, your soul's in danger if you haven't grabbed His hand. He completely saves and pulls you out of that and will bring you out of the angry waves to the shore if you will let Him.
He's the Master of the sea, billows His will obey.
In other words, the waves obey Him.
He your Saviour wants to be—be saved today.
Jesus is the Master of the sea. Why would you not grab His hand? He's the one who the wind and waves obeyed. Do you remember how in the Gospels the disciples were amazed at how the wind and waves obeyed Him? Why would you not let the same man who is God pull you out of the sea, pull you out of the ocean of your sin, your selfishness, and bring you safely to His side?
Be saved today. Be saved today. The Saviour wants to be the one who rescues you so that you can experience His love and live a blessed life with Him and be saved from hell as well, eternally.
It's an incredible offer, but so many of us say, "No thanks, I'll keep swimming. I'll keep swimming." That's a tragic decision, because in the end the only way to the peaceful shore is to grab the saving, loving hand of Jesus and trust in Him. Trust in Him as your Saviour. Realise that the only way to get right with God is by trusting in Him and letting Him pull you to shore. Then by grace you will be saved, and you will be living a blessed, worshipful life of service in response.
Conclusion
I love this song. Did something jump out at you today? Did one of the lines really speak to you, or did something just inspire you? I'd love for you to share that below.
Let's sing it together now. If you've experienced this, you're going to sing it with joy because you've already been saved. But if you need to make that step today, then sing this in faith, asking Him to lift you up out of the sea, and He'll do it.
References
Charles Johnson, One Hundred & One Famous Hymns (Delavan: Hallberg, 1982)
David W. Nebbman, Sacred Music Companion Fact Book (Anaheim Hills: Centerstream Publishers, 2002)
Paul Davis, Inspirational Hymn and Song Stories of the Twentieth Century (Belfast: Ambassador, 2001)
