“For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” – 1 Timothy 4:4
IN 1863, Folliott S. Pierpoint was wandering through the English countryside around the winding Avon River. As he looked on the peaceful beauty surrounding him, he was inspired to reflect on God’s gifts to his people in creation and in the church.
Above all, Pierpoint thought of the sacrifice of Christ, in the greatest of sacrifices, that of his life in return for ours. He thus originally wrote the text of “For the Beauty of the Earth” as a hymn for the Lord’s Supper.
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Be Thou my vision
The Gospel and the happy fool
The original chorus read, “Christ, our God, to thee we raise this, our sacrifice of praise.” The hymn was meant not only as a song of thanksgiving, but as the only thing we could give Christ in return for his mercy and love: a hymn of praise laid upon the altar as a sacrifice.
Editors have since altered the refrain so it has become a more generic hymn of thanksgiving, but as it stands, it takes on a deeper meaning when understood as something we not only sing, but offer up to God.
The Lord is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Today in prayer, praise Him for the beauty of the earth.
“Lord of all, to thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise.” – Folliott S. Pierpoint
God’s Word: “I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord.” – Psalm 116:17
