The title of a song I remember as being a favorite when I was a child. I’m glad we still sing it today.
Theodore Monod wrote the words in 1874.
“O, the bitter pain and sorrow that a time could ever be, when I proudly said to Jesus, ‘All of self and none of thee.’”
“Yet He found me; I beheld Him bleeding on th’accursed tree, and my wistful heart said faintly, ‘Some of self, and some of thee.’”
“Day by day His tender mercy healing, helping full and free, bro’t me lower while I whispered, ‘Less of self, and more of thee.’”
“Higher than the highest heavens, deeper than the deepest sea, Lord, thy love at last has conquered, ‘None of self, and all of thee.’”
John, the baptizer and forerunner of Jesus, never sang the song written by Theodore Monod, but he lived by the principle taught in the song. He expressed it in words he spoke to his disciples. Words which all are trying to live by who are crucifing themselves and living for Jesus.
“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)