I recently began a blog series entitled Hymns We Should Sing More, which seeks to edify the church with rich, biblical hymns. This is the seventh installment in this series. You can read the previous installments here.
All around the world, Christians gather for corporate worship and sing songs, hymns and spiritual songs as an act of worship to God. Specifically these hymns are full of rich biblical truths about God, mankind, salvation, the coming Kingdom and many other theological topics. Unfortunately, many Christians are unfamiliar with a vast number of theologically rich hymns.
When hymns are sung in a contemporary worship service, there is often a lack of repertoire of hymnology. This series, Hymns We Should Sing More, is a means of getting more Christians aware of the vast number of theologically rich hymns that we rarely, if ever, sing.
The hymn He Will Hold Me Fast was written by Ada R. Habershon in 1906. Grounding the believer’s hope in God’s sovereign grip, this hymn encourages believers to rest their salvation and life wholly upon God.
When I fear my faith will fail,
Christ will hold me fast;
When the tempter would prevail,
He can hold me fast.I could never keep my hold,
He will hold me fast;
For my love is often cold,
He must hold me fast.I am precious in His sight,
He will hold me fast;
Those He saves are His delight.
He will hold me fast.He’ll not let my soul be lost,
Christ will hold me fast;
Bought by Him at such a cost,
He will hold me fast.Refrain
He will hold me fast,
He will hold me fast;
For my Savior loves me so,
He will hold me fast.
3 Comments
Two of my favorites:
Be Still My Soul
O Sacred Head Now Wounded
Good post, Dustin. As I have said before, I like the fact that you are correlating hymns with truths of God and the need/motivation for such. I like that. 🙂
I’m curious if in your research did you come across anything that indicated what the motivation or inspiration for Ada’s hymn was? What would motivate an English woman of the late 1800’s to write such a hymn? What could she have been dealing with or inspired her to write such poetic words?
Hey Dave,
Thanks for responding. In in the early 1900′ a young man attended a revival meeting and became a Christian. The new-found Christian in later years suffered to believe that he would hold the faith until the end of his life. The revival preacher, Robert Harkness, wrote to dear friend Ada Habershon and asked her to write a song which would give, “definite assurance of success in the Christian life.” Ada responded with seven separate hymns that were sung in-between short preaching sessions. He Will Hold Me Fast was one of those hymns. It was written to encourage new believers or struggling believers to place their hope and trust in God’s sovereign grace that will keep them until the end.
Again, thanks for writing in!