Hello OCBC family,
 “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:8a). This is a very wonderful and powerful passage, and this is the verse that was the inspiration for Keith Getty and Margaret Becker to write a lovely modern hymn, “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer.”

You are very familiar with Keith Getty’s name, after all, he and his wife wrote a vast number of modern hymns with a sound doctrine, “In Christ Alone”, “My Worth Is Not in what I Own”, and many more. He composed the melody for this hymn while his friend, Margaret Becker, wrote the lyrics. She is from Bay Shore, New York, and she started her musical career as a rock singer, but she transitioned to more like pop music style, working with several Christian artists, including Keith Getty.

This is a prayer that became a hymn, encouraging us to trust in the Lord during our trials and troubles.

The second stanza is a powerful picture that our Lord will be our guide even during the tempest, like he was with the disciples over 2,000 years ago.

“Jesus guide me through the tempest;
Keep my spirit staid and sure.
When the midnight meets the morning,
Let me love You even more.”

What comfort we can have, knowing that the Lord who calmed the wind and the sea, is the same Lord that will calm our storms.
This modern hymn closed with this refrain, that reminds us that we are on a journey, but one day we will be with our Lord forever.

“May this journey bring a blessing,
May I rise on wings of faith;
And at the end of my heart’s testing,
With Your likeness let me wake.”

“ Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13)
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In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19). This is the commandment that our Lord gave us, to preach the gospel everywhere. And this was the call to many men and women through the centuries to preach the good news of salvation. A very famous missionary is this young man who was born in A.D. 373 in a place that now we call Scotland. His father was a deacon and his grandfather a priest, and his name was Patrick. When Patrick was 16 years old, pirates came to his little town and took him to Ireland as slave. There is when he gave his life to the Lord Jesus.

He wrote this as a testimony. “The Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God.”

Patrick eventually escaped and returned home, but his life was not the same, and now he had a love for missions and to preach the gospel in the land where he was a slave, Ireland.

When he was 30 years old, he returned to Ireland with just one book, the Latin Bible. His preaching touched many lives, and the church in Ireland became a reality; even his former captors became Christians. His testimony and influence and his preaching in Ireland were so strong, that he received opposition from the Druids, nevertheless, the gospel was growing. According to tradition, Patrick planted 200 churches and baptized several thousand new converts.

The church in Ireland produced many hymns, poems, sermons, and songs of worship, and in the eighth century, an unknown poet wrote these lyrics.
Rop tú mo baile, a Choimdiu cride:
ní ní nech aile acht Rí secht nime.
Rop tú mo scrútain i l-ló 's i n-aidche;
rop tú ad-chëar im chotlud caidche.

In 1905, Mary Elizabeth Byrne translated the poem, and became the very familiar hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” Also, Eleanor Hull prepared the version that we know now.

“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Be all else but naught to me, save that Thou art;
Be Thou my best thought in the day and the night,
Both waking and sleeping, Thy presence my light.
High King of heaven, Thou heaven's bright Sun,
O grant me its joys, after vict'ry is won;
Great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be Thou my vision, O Ruler of all.”

Please, use this hymn as a prayer, asking the Lord to be your Vision, your Wisdom, your Father, your Breastplate, your Sword for the fight, your Armor, your Shelter, your strong Tower, your King.
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In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family,
 “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” (Jeremiah 31:3. Last Sunday, during our evening worship service, as congregation, we sang the hymn “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”.  This is not a too familiar hymn for many members, but we learned it and enjoy the powerful lyrics of this lovely hymn.

Who wrote this hymn? A man called George Matheson, a Scotch minister. When he was a teenager, he learned that his poor eyesight was deteriorating further. His plans, nevertheless, were to enroll in Glasgow University; sadly, at that time, during his studies for ministry, he became totally blind. His sister helped him study. But his spirit collapsed when his fiancée told him that she was not willing to marry a blind man, broke the engagement and returned his ring.

He never married, and the pain of that rejection never left him. Several years later, his sister shared with him that now she is engaged and to be married soon. He was happy for his siter, but his own pain for the rejection of his former fiancée returned to him. During this sad moment, he wrote,
O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

George Matheson tells us how this hymn was written.
“It was composed with extreme rapidity, and I felt myself rather in a position of one who was being dictated to than of an original artist. I was suffering from extreme mental destress, and the hymn was the fruit of pain.”
In times of pain or sorrow, you might use Matheson’s hymn to find comfort.

O cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to hide from thee;
I lay in dust life's glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red,
Life that shall endless be.
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In His service,
Israel

Hello OCBC family!
Let me open this article with the words of the book of Lamentation 3:22-23, “It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.” I quoted this passage from the lovely King James Version of the bible, because this perhaps was the version that Thomas O. Chisholm used to have inspiration to write his famous hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.”

Thomas Obediah Chisholm was born in Kentucky and at the age of sixteen years old he was teaching school. He came to Christ at age of twenty-seven and served as an evangelist. But his health was not good, and he worked in many places, depending on his health. Through ups and downs he found the blessings from God every day, especially in God’s word. And he wrote this hymn.

“Great is Thy faithfulness, O God, my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been, Thou forever wilt be.”

Chisholm shared once that it was not a dramatic story behind the writing of this hymn; it just came as a poem from his quite time. He sent these words to a good musician friend, William M. Runyan, and he was very touched by this poem, and composed the melody that we are very familiar with. This hymn was published in 1923. It became popular around the world when George Beverly Shea and the choirs at the Billy Graham Crusades sang it in their revival meetings.

“Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine with ten thousand beside!”

Let us always remember the words of our brother Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:13, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”

“Great is Thy faithfulness!
Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!”
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In His service,
Israel