Just another Melodic Monday!

Ok, I admit, I was a massive fan of The Bangles when I was a teenager, so I couldn't resist the obscure reference to their hit, "Manic Monday".  Pop culture reference over with, here's a song that we'll be singing in the future when we meet as a church.

The traditional version of the hymn "Come thou Fount of every blessing" has a potentially confusing reference to something called an "Ebenezer" in verse two.  

Ebenezer means "Stone of Help".  Read 1 Samuel 7, and you'll discover why Samuel set up a massive stone and gave it that name.  He and the Israelite nation had received help from God to overcome their enemies so they could remain in their homeland.  

Today, we look to Jesus Christ as the one God has provided to bring us to Him and keep us there.  The hymn writer raises their own "Ebenezer" in recognition of the help that Christ has given.

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,

Tune my heart to sing thy grace

Streams of mercy, never ceasing,

Call for songs of loudest praise.

Teach me some melodious sonnet

Sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise the mount!  I’m fixed upon it,

Mount of God's redeeming love.

Here I raise my Ebenezer;

Hither by thy help I’m come;

And I hope, by thy good pleasure,

Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,

Wandering from the throne of God;

He, to rescue me from danger,

Bought me with his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love:

Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for thy courts above.