Jesus Paid It All

May 30, 2020

I am living proof that one doesn’t have to be a good musician to appreciate good music. It doesn’t much matter what genre it is; if it’s good, I usually like it. Big Bands of the forties, jazz, mood music, old time country, early rock ‘n roll, classical, latin...the list goes on. I can play simple stuff, but haven’t devoted the time and effort into becoming an accomplished musician. 

As a Christian, I was fortunate enough to grow up in the fifties, when hymns and gospel songs were the staple of worship, to witness the birth of Contemporary Christian music in the sixties, and its maturing in the present. I have it all, a smorgasbord of music, but there is a special place in my heart for the old gospel songs. This evening as I was working on yet another chair, I was listening to a some of them. One in particular stood out: “Jesus Paid it All.” 

I hear the Savior say, 

“Thy strength indeed is small. 

Child of weakness, watch and pray, 

Find in Me thine all in all.” 

REFRAIN 

Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe; 

Sin had left a crimson stain, 

He washed it white as snow. 

Lord, now indeed I find 

Thy power, and Thine alone, 

Can change the leper’s spots 

And melt the heart of stone. 

For nothing good have I 

Whereby Thy grace to claim; 

I’ll wash my garments white 

In the blood of Calvary’s Lamb. 

And when, before the throne, 

I stand in Him complete, 

“Jesus died my soul to save,” 

My lips shall still repeat. 

This old song (written in the fly leaf of a hymnal during the pastor’s rather long prayer in 1865), just about says it all for me. I am so grateful that Jesus knows my strength is small, that he instructs me in the remedy by watching and prayer. But best of all, he paid the price of my sin. I have no basis on which to lay claim to his salvation, but he died for me, and that is enough. All to him I owe; I am humbled by his unrelenting goodness. He receives me in spite of my failures, my doubts and fears, my ignorance and foolishness. In this song, the Gospel is proclaimed: All to him I owe!