“I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE” @ 1858

Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879,) visiting Düsseldorf, Germany, writes her first popular hymn, “I GAVE MY LIFE FOR THEE” after seeing Sternberg’s painting of the suffering Christ titled Ecce Homo – “Behold the Man”. A caption on the painting read, “This have I done for thee; what has thou done for Me?” This inspires her to write the hymn.

On January 10, 1858, she comes home tired and weary, and sitting down she reads the motto, “This have I done for thee; what has thou done for Me?” and the lines of her hymn flashes up in her mind. She quickly wrotes them on a piece of paper. However, reading them over, she thought not very high of it. So, she tossed the paper into the fire, but it did not fall into the fire. Some months latter, she showed the words to her father, who encouraged her to preserve them. Then he wrote the tune Baca specially for the hymn.

“I gave My life for thee,

My precious blood I shed,

That thou mightst ransomed be,

And quickened from the dead;

I gave, I gave My life for thee,

What hast thou done for Me?

I gave, I gave My life for thee,

What hast thou done for Me?”

The LORD gave His life for us. He shed His blood for us, that we be ransomed and set free. What have we done for Him? How are we showing our gratitude? What are we willing give Him?