Text · full lyrics
Lord, Thou lov'st the cheerful giver
Who with open heart and hand
Blesses freely as a river
That refreshes all the land.
Grant us then the grace of giving
With a spirit large and free,
That our life and all our living
We may consecrate to Thee.
We are Thine, Thy mercy sought us,
Found us in death's dreadful way,
To the fold in safety brought us,
Never more from Thee to stray.
Thine own life Thou freely gavest
As an off'ring on the cross
For each sinner whom Thou savest
From eternal shame and loss.
Blest by Thee with gifts and graces,
May we heed Thy church's call:
Gladly in all times and places
Give to Thee who givest all.
Thou has bought us, and no longer
Can we claim to be our own;
Ever free and ever stronger,
We shall serve Thee, Lord, alone.
Savior, Thou hast freely given
All the blessings we enjoy.
Earthly store and bread of heaven,
Love and peace without alloy;
Humbly now we bow before Thee,
And our all to Thee resign;
For the kingdom, pow'r and glory,
Are, O Lord, for ever Thine.
The lyricist
Robert Murray
By vocation Murray was an editor rather than a preacher. He trained at the Free Church College and was licensed in the Presbyterian Church of Canada, but his life's work was the Presbyterian Witness, his denomination's Maritime weekly, which he ran for more than fifty years — writing in its pages for temperance, Sunday observance, and the Confederation of 1867. He had written verse since boyhood, and when four of his hymns were chosen for the first Canadian Presbyterian Hymnal in 1880, he — the only native-born contributor among poets of the British "homeland" — signed them with a bare initial "M.," unwilling to seem to claim equal standing. "Lord, Thou Lovest the Cheerful Giver" came a little later, appearing as an almsgiving hymn in the Scottish Church Hymnary of 1898.