Praise to the Lord, the Almighty: The Story Behind the Hymn
How a 30-year-old German schoolmaster living in a cave in a limestone valley wrote the greatest hymn of praise in the history of the Christian church — and why the valley where he found God in creation would one day give its name to Neanderthal Man
Introduction: A Hymn Worth 345 Years
Some hymns are products of their moment — born in a particular revival, suited to a particular theological controversy, loved by a particular generation, and then quietly retired to the back pages of hymnals that no one opens anymore. And then there are hymns like this one. Hymns that seem to belong not to any era but to every era. Hymns that the church of the 17th century sang and the church of the 21st century still sings, with equal conviction and equal joy, because the truth they carry is not fashionable truth but foundational truth — the kind that does not need to be updated because it was never merely current.
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation” is that kind of hymn. Written in German in 1680 by a 30-year-old Reformed schoolmaster named Joachim Neander — who was, at the time, living in disgrace, dismissed from his position, and sheltering in a limestone cave in a valley on the Rhine — it has been described by hymnologist John Julian in his Dictionary of Hymnology as “a magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest creation of its author, and of the first rank in its class.” It appeared in Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee service at Westminster Abbey. It is sung at state funerals, at college graduations, at baptisms and confirmations. It has been translated into dozens of languages. And every Sunday in thousands of churches around the world, its great ancient melody rings out — the same melody that was first published in the city of Stralsund on the Baltic coast of Germany in 1665.
But behind the grandeur of the hymn is a story that is anything but grand — at least by the world’s standards. It is the story of a short life, a dramatic conversion, a turbulent ministry, a season of exile, and a young man who found God most powerfully not in a cathedral but in a cave, not in success but in suffering, and not in the approval of his superiors but in the beauty of a wild limestone valley that — in one of history’s most remarkable coincidences — would one day give its name to an ancient species of human being.
Joachim Neander: A Life Burning Bright and Brief
Joachim Neander was born in 1650 in Bremen, a prosperous trading city in northern Germany near the mouth of the Weser River. His family had already shown a remarkable pattern: his grandfather was a musician, and his father was a Latin teacher — a combination of artistic sensibility and scholarly discipline that would shape the young Neander deeply. The family name was originally “Neumann,” a common German surname meaning “new man.” At some point — following the Renaissance fashion for Hellenizing surnames — the family adopted the Greek equivalent: Neander. It was a name that would prove prophetic in ways no one could have imagined.
As a young man, Neander showed little interest in either his family’s faith or his father’s scholarly discipline. By his late teens and early twenties he was living what contemporary sources describe as a “wild and godless life” — the specific details are lost to history, but the testimony of his later conversion makes clear that it was a genuine departure from Christian practice rather than mere youthful restlessness. He was, in other words, not someone who drifted away from faith gradually, but someone who actively rejected it.
The turning point came in 1670. Neander was 20 years old, a student of Latin and poetry, when he went with two friends to hear the preaching at St. Martin’s Church in Bremen. The three young men went with entirely wrong motives: they intended to mock the new pastor, Theodor Undereyck, and to criticize his theology. What happened instead is one of the classic conversion narratives of German Protestant history. Neander heard the Gospel preached with clarity and power, and something broke open inside him. He left St. Martin’s Church a changed man — converted to Christian faith and to the Calvinist-influenced Reformed theology that Undereyck preached.
The transformation was complete and lasting. Neander devoted himself immediately to theological study and became deeply influenced by two of the great Pietist thinkers of the era: Philipp Spener (1635–1705), the father of German Pietism whose call for a warmer, more experiential faith was reshaping German Protestantism, and Johann Jakob Schütz (1640–1690), himself a hymn writer and a man whose emphasis on personal devotion and Scripture meditation shaped the younger generation profoundly. These influences gave Neander’s faith a combination that was relatively unusual for the period: rigorous Reformed theology (God is sovereign, Scripture is supreme, worship is ordered) held together with warm Pietist devotion (personal relationship with Christ, the inner life matters, prayer and praise flow from the heart).
In 1674, at just 24 years of age, Neander was appointed Rector — headmaster — of the Latin School in Düsseldorf, a classical academy affiliated with the German Reformed Church. It was a position of real responsibility and real opportunity. He was recognized as a gifted teacher, a compelling preacher, and a man of uncommon spiritual depth for his age. The students respected him. The congregation he served alongside the school appreciated his gifts. For a time, things went well.
But Neander’s Pietist convictions eventually brought him into conflict with his more conservative Reformed superiors. His organizing of private devotional gatherings — prayer meetings, Bible studies, informal worship — was seen as a threat to the established church order. His evangelical zeal, which drew people in numbers that made the institutional church uncomfortable, led to accusations of separatism. In 1676, he was formally suspended from his teaching position and banned from preaching in Düsseldorf.
What did he do? He moved into a cave.
A few miles from Düsseldorf, on the banks of a small tributary of the Rhine called the Düssel, there was a wild and beautiful limestone ravine — deep rock faces, wooded slopes, caves, waterfalls, and a small river winding through the valley floor. Neander had discovered this valley during his years in Düsseldorf and had come to love it as a place of solitary prayer and reflection. When he was dismissed from his position and his lodgings at the school, he retreated there. He is said to have lived, at least in part, in one of the limestone caves — still known today as “Neander’s Cave” (Neandershöhle) — and to have spent this period of involuntary exile in prayer, Scripture meditation, and the writing of hymns.
It is from this extraordinary season of life that most of his approximately 60 hymns emerged. The beauty of the valley — its soaring cliffs, its living water, its birdsong and wildflowers, its silence and grandeur — filled his imagination and his theology. Creation was not merely scenery for Neander. It was a living sermon, a visible declaration of the majesty, power, and provision of its Creator. And from that conviction came the hymn that would outlive him by centuries.
He was eventually restored to his position — he returned to Bremen in 1679 to serve as assistant pastor at St. Martin’s Church, the very church where his conversion had taken place. But his health was already failing. Tuberculosis, the great destroyer of so many gifted young lives in the pre-antibiotic world, had taken hold. On May 31, 1680 — the same year his hymn collection was published — Joachim Neander died in Bremen at the age of 30. He had written more than 60 hymns and composed tunes for many of them in a Christian life of barely ten years.
The Neanderthal Connection: History’s Most Unlikely Footnote
Here is one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of both theology and paleontology. The limestone valley where Joachim Neander walked and prayed and wrote his hymns was named after his family — the Neander Valley, in German the Neanderthal (or Neandertal, in modern spelling). Nearly 200 years after Neander’s death, in the summer of 1856, workers quarrying limestone in the Neandershöhle — Neander’s Cave — discovered fossilized skeletal remains of a previously unknown species of ancient human being. Scientists named the species after the valley, and the valley after the hymnist: Homo neanderthalensis — Neanderthal Man.
Joachim Neander thus holds the singular distinction — unique in the entire history of religion — of being the only hymn writer after whom a species of hominid is named. Bach does not have a fossil. Luther does not have a fossil. Wesley does not have a fossil. Neander does. The man who wrote “All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near; join me in glad adoration” gave his name to a creature whose spiritual capacity — if any — we can only wonder at. It is either the most ironic or the most poetically perfect footnote in the history of praise.
The Tune: From Stralsund to the World
The melody to which “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” is sung — known by its incipit as LOBE DEN HERREN — is itself older than Neander’s text. It first appeared in the Stralsund Gesangbuch of 1665, a Lutheran hymnal published in the Baltic port city of Stralsund (in what is now northeastern Germany). The composer is listed as anonymous, and the melody itself is believed to be based on an older German folk tune. It was first published there as a secular song, and several variants circulated through German musical life between 1665 and 1680.
When Neander wrote “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” in 1680, he chose this existing melody for his text — and the marriage of text and tune proved so perfect that virtually every subsequent version of the hymn has used the same melody. The tune is catalogued in the Zahn index as number 1912c. Its distinctive meter — 14.14.4.7.8 — is unusual, which is part of what gives the hymn its sweeping, majestic character: the long opening lines feel like the wide horizons of creation itself, and the shorter lines in the middle create a gathering intensity before the final long line releases the praise in full. It is music that feels as if it was designed to fill cathedrals — and yet it was written for ordinary German churchgoers in the 17th century.
The tune received its definitive English arrangement through William Sterndale Bennett (1816–1875) and Otto Goldschmidt (1829–1907), who harmonized it for Catherine Winkworth’s Chorale Book for England in 1863. This arrangement — stately, rich, and congregationally singable — is the version most widely used in English-speaking churches today.
Catherine Winkworth: The Woman Who Gave England a Treasure
Most English-speaking Christians who sing “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” have never heard the name Catherine Winkworth — but they owe her an enormous debt. Born on September 13, 1827, in Holborn, London, Winkworth became the most important translator of German hymns into English in the 19th century, and arguably in all of Christian history. Her translations are distinguished by a quality that is genuinely rare in translation work: they are both faithful to the original and beautiful in the target language simultaneously. They do not sacrifice meaning for beauty or beauty for meaning. They do both.
Winkworth learned German during a year she spent in Dresden, Germany, and spent much of her adult life in Manchester, England. In 1855 she published Lyra Germanica, a collection of German hymns translated into English, which became an immediate success and went through numerous editions. In 1863 she published The Chorale Book for England, which paired her translations with their original German chorale melodies — edited by William Sterndale Bennett and Otto Goldschmidt. It was in this volume that her English translation of Neander’s “Lobe den Herren” appeared, and it became the standard English text almost immediately.
Winkworth died on July 1, 1878, near Geneva, Switzerland, at the age of 50. She is commemorated in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on July 1, and a stained glass window in the Bristol Cathedral honors her memory. Her contribution to English hymnody is immeasurable — she effectively gave English-speaking Christians access to the entire German chorale tradition, including not only Neander but Luther, Paul Gerhardt, and dozens of other Continental hymn writers whose riches would otherwise have remained locked behind a language barrier.
Scripture Roots: Psalms 103 and 150
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” is, at its core, a paraphrase of two great Psalms of the Hebrew Bible — and understanding those Psalms is essential to understanding what Neander was doing when he wrote it.
Psalm 103 opens with one of the most famous calls to personal worship in all of Scripture:
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” — Psalm 103:1–2
Neander’s opening line — “O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation” — is a direct echo of this Psalm’s personal, first-person summons. The psalmist is not merely describing God in the abstract. He is talking to himself, commanding his own inner life to wake up and worship. This is not cool theological observation. It is urgent, personal, passionate praise — the cry of a soul who knows what it means to be saved, healed, and sustained.
Psalm 150 is the great doxological finale of the entire Psalter — the explosion of praise that the whole book has been building toward:
“Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness… Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!” — Psalm 150:2, 6
Neander’s final stanza — “All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before him” — is almost a direct quotation of Psalm 150:6. The entire cosmos is being summoned to worship: not just the congregation, not just the church, not just humanity — but every breathing creature in creation. The hymn ends, as the Psalter ends, with a universal, all-inclusive, boundary-dissolving call to praise.
Beyond these two anchor Psalms, the hymn also draws on Psalm 61:4 (“Let me dwell in your tent forever; let me take refuge under the shelter of your wings”), Psalm 23:6 (“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”), and Psalm 91. The sheltering-wings imagery in verse two — “Shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth” — is a direct pastoral application of these protective-God texts. Neander was writing not just a hymn of abstract praise but a hymn of pastoral comfort: the God who is King of creation is also the God who shelters, sustains, and defends.
Lyrical Analysis: Verse by Verse
Verse 1 — The Universal Call
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise him, for he is thy health and salvation! All ye who hear, now to his temple draw near; join me in glad adoration.
The opening salvo is breathtaking in its sweep. “The King of creation” — not the King of Israel, not the King of the church, not the King of the righteous — but the King of everything that exists. Neander was a Reformed Calvinist, and the sovereignty of God over all creation was not a peripheral doctrine for him but the foundation of everything. The second line turns immediately from the cosmic to the personal: “O my soul.” The same God who rules the universe is also the health and salvation of this one particular soul. The universal and the intimate are held in perfect tension from the very first verse. The final couplet extends the invitation outward: “All ye who hear” — whoever is within earshot of this hymn is being invited into the same praise. The temple is not a building. It is the presence of the living God, available to all who draw near.
Verse 2 — The Sheltering God
Praise to the Lord, who o’er all things so wondrously reigneth, shelters thee under his wings, yea, so gently sustaineth! Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been granted in what he ordaineth?
This verse reveals something of the pastoral heart behind the hymn. Neander was not a man who had experienced an easy life — he had been dismissed, exiled, and was at the time of writing slowly dying of tuberculosis. Yet he writes of a God who “wondrously reigneth” and “gently sustaineth.” The question at the end of the verse — “Hast thou not seen how thy desires e’er have been granted in what he ordaineth?” — is not a naïve assertion that God always gives us what we want. It is a deeper claim: that God’s purposes, even when they confound our plans, are ultimately the fulfillment of our deepest desires. When we look back on the story of our lives, we will see His hand in what He ordained. Providence is not always legible in the moment. It becomes clear in retrospect.
Verse 3 — The Defending God
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee! Surely his goodness and mercy here daily attend thee; ponder anew what the Almighty can do, if with his love he befriend thee.
“Ponder anew what the Almighty can do” — this single line may be the most memorable of the entire hymn. It is an invitation to theological imagination: stop and think, really think, about the capacities of the God you worship. If the Creator of the universe has chosen to befriend you — to make Himself your advocate, your defender, your daily companion — what then is impossible? The line does not make a specific promise. It opens a door. It invites the worshipper to bring every fear, every limitation, every impossible situation into the orbit of this one question: what can the Almighty do? The echo of Psalm 23:6 — “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life” — is clear and intentional.
Verse 4 — The Universal Doxology
Praise to the Lord! O let all that is in me adore him! All that hath life and breath, come now with praises before him! Let the amen sound from his people again; gladly for e’er we adore him.
The final verse is the great crescendo — the point at which the hymn bursts its banks and floods the world with praise. “All that is in me” — every faculty, every thought, every emotion, every desire — is summoned to adore Him. Then the circle widens: “All that hath life and breath” — a direct echo of Psalm 150:6, bringing every living creature into the doxology. And then the final instruction: “Let the amen sound from his people again.” The “amen” here is not merely a liturgical sign-off. It is a declaration of covenant faithfulness — a people saying together, “So be it. This is true. We stake our lives on this.” And then the last word: “gladly.” The praise is not reluctant, not dutiful, not performed. It is glad. It is joyful. It flows from a soul that has encountered the King of creation and been overwhelmed by what it found.
Timeline: 345 Years of Praise
Year
Event
1650
Joachim Neander born in Bremen, Germany, son of a Latin teacher, grandson of a musician
1665
The tune LOBE DEN HERREN first published in the Stralsund Gesangbuch — an anonymous German folk-based melody that would later be paired with Neander’s text
1670
Neander converted to Christian faith after hearing pastor Theodor Undereyck preach at St. Martin’s Church, Bremen — he had gone intending to mock the preacher
1674
Appointed Rector (Headmaster) of the Latin School in Düsseldorf at age 24
1676
Suspended from his position due to conflict with Reformed church authorities over his Pietist gatherings and evangelistic activities; retreats to the limestone valley near Düsseldorf now named Neanderthal
1676–1679
Period of exile in the Neander Valley; writes the majority of his approximately 60 hymns, including “Lobe den Herren”; lives at least in part in Neandershöhle (Neander’s Cave)
1679
Returns to Bremen; appointed assistant pastor at St. Martin’s Church — the site of his own conversion
1680
“Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” published in Neander’s collection A und Ω. Joachimi Neandri Glaub- und Liebesübung; Neander dies of tuberculosis on May 31, aged 30
1800
King Frederick William III of Prussia hears the hymn for the first time; reportedly declares it his favorite hymn — a royal endorsement that accelerates its spread across German-speaking lands
1856
Workers quarrying limestone in the Neandershöhle discover fossilized remains of an unknown ancient human species; named Homo neanderthalensis — Neanderthal Man — after the valley named after Neander
1858
Catherine Winkworth publishes an early English translation of the hymn in Lyra Germanica
1863
Winkworth’s definitive English translation published in The Chorale Book for England, with music arranged by Bennett and Goldschmidt; this becomes the standard English text used in hymnals worldwide
1878
Catherine Winkworth dies near Geneva at age 50; her translations already widely used across English-speaking denominations
Late 19th–20th century
The hymn enters virtually every major English-language hymnal — Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Catholic
1989
Included in The United Methodist Hymnal (#139) as one of the most frequently sung historic hymns
2004
Passion / Christy Nockels records a contemporary live version for Hymns Ancient and Modern (sixstepsrecords/Sparrow), introducing it to a new generation
2013
Sung at Westminster Abbey during the service celebrating the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation — the same British royal tradition that would inspire “Majesty” 36 years earlier
2024–present
Continues to appear in new worship arrangements; listed as one of the top-ranked hymns in CCLI globally; sung in churches on every continent in dozens of languages
Notable Recordings and Performances
Artist / Context
Notes
Westminster Abbey Choristers
Performed at the 60th Coronation Anniversary service of Queen Elizabeth II, June 4, 2013; one of the most globally watched performances of the hymn in modern times
Passion / Christy Nockels
Hymns Ancient and Modern (2004, sixstepsrecords/Sparrow); live recording that introduced the hymn to a new generation of contemporary worshippers
T4G (Together for the Gospel)
Performed live at multiple T4G conferences; lyric video released 2020; one of the most-streamed versions among Reformed/evangelical audiences
Concordia Publishing House
Recorded for One and All Rejoice (2024); continues the Lutheran tradition of the hymn as a congregational standard
Nathan Drake / Reawaken Hymns
Contemporary acoustic arrangement (2021); widely used for modern worship settings
King’s College Cambridge
Multiple recordings across decades; the choir’s choral version remains one of the most beloved classical recordings of the hymn
Various German choirs
The original German “Lobe den Herren” continues to be sung in German Lutheran and Reformed churches; recordings by the Thomanerchor Leipzig and others
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”?
The original German hymn “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” was written by Joachim Neander (1650–1680), a German Reformed schoolmaster and hymn writer from Bremen, Germany. The standard English translation was made by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878), published in The Chorale Book for England in 1863.
What does “Lobe den Herren” mean in English?
“Lobe den Herren” is German for “Praise the Lord” — specifically, it is an imperative: a command to praise. The full original title, “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren,” translates literally as “Praise the Lord, the mighty King of glory,” which Winkworth rendered as “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation.”
What Bible verses is “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” based on?
The hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 103 and Psalm 150. It also draws on Psalm 61:4 (sheltering under God’s wings), Psalm 23:6 (goodness and mercy), and Psalm 91. The final verse closely echoes Psalm 150:6: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.”
What is the connection between Joachim Neander and Neanderthal Man?
The limestone valley near Düsseldorf where Neander walked, prayed, and wrote his hymns was named the Neanderthal (Neander Valley) after his family. In 1856 — nearly 200 years after Neander’s death — fossilized remains of an ancient human species were discovered in the valley’s limestone caves and named Homo neanderthalensis — Neanderthal Man — after the valley. This makes Neander the only hymn writer in history after whom a species of hominid is named.
Where does the melody to “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” come from?
The melody, known as LOBE DEN HERREN, was first published in the Stralsund Gesangbuch of 1665 — a Lutheran hymnal from the Baltic city of Stralsund, Germany. The composer is anonymous, and the tune is believed to be based on an older German folk melody. Its unusual meter (14.14.4.7.8) gives it the sweeping, majestic character that has made it so enduring.
Legacy: The Hymn That Outlasted an Empire
Joachim Neander died at 30 with no cathedral, no institution, no movement, and no monument to his name. He had been dismissed from his job, exiled from his community, and reduced to living in a cave. By any earthly measure, his was not a life of visible success. And yet the words he wrote in that cave — the words that poured out of him as he walked the limestone paths of the valley that bore his name, as he watched the light change on the cliffs and heard the river running below — those words have outlasted every institution that dismissed him.
They were sung at the coronation anniversary of a Queen. They were sung at the funerals of kings. King Frederick William III of Prussia made “Lobe den Herren” his personal favorite — he first heard it in 1800, over a century after Neander’s death, and it became the soundtrack of his devotional life. It has been included in virtually every major Protestant hymnal in every language for three and a half centuries. It was described by the greatest hymnologist of the 19th century as “of the first rank in its class.” And it is still being sung — in German, in English, in Korean, in Swahili, in Spanish — every Sunday in tens of thousands of churches around the world.
What made the difference? Not Neander’s position. Not his success. Not his vindication by his superiors or his institutional respectability. What made the difference was that he saw something in the valley — in the sweep of the cliffs and the light on the water and the wildflowers in the summer — that was more real to him than any of the things that had been taken from him. He saw the King of creation. And he could not stop praising Him.
That is why the hymn endures. Because creation is still magnificent. Because the King is still on His throne. Because there are still people — in valleys and cities and caves and cathedrals — who look at what has been made and feel, rising irresistibly in their chests, the only possible response: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation.
Text: “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren” by Joachim Neander (1650–1680), first published in A und Ω. Joachimi Neandri Glaub- und Liebesübung, Bremen, 1680. English translation by Catherine Winkworth (1827–1878), first published in The Chorale Book for England, London, 1863. Tune: LOBE DEN HERREN, Anonymous (1665), first published in Stralsund Gesangbuch, 1665; harmonized by William Sterndale Bennett (1816–1875) and Otto Goldschmidt (1829–1907). Public Domain.
How Jenn Johnson sang a song into her phone on a country road after adopting her son — and how those unrehearsed words of gratitude became one of the most beloved worship anthems of the 21st century, winning Song of the Year at the 2023 GMA Dove Awards and topping the Billboard Gospel Chart through CeCe Winans’ iconic cover
Introduction: A Song Born on a Country Road
Some of the greatest worship songs in Christian history were born not in recording studios or songwriting retreats, but in the unguarded, unscripted moments of ordinary life — when someone is simply driving down a road and a truth so large and so personal that it cannot be contained suddenly pours out of them and into the air. Charles Wesley reportedly wrote hymns on horseback. Rich Mullins drove with the windows down. And in 2018, Jenn Johnson was driving on a long country road in northern California, freshly home from adopting her son, when she grabbed her phone and started singing.
What she sang into that phone — a raw, grateful, overflowing declaration of God’s faithfulness in her life — became the foundation of “Goodness of God.” It was refined, co-written with an extraordinary team of songwriters, professionally recorded at Bethel Church in Redding, California, and released in January 2019 on Bethel Music’s album Victory. Within months it had spread to churches around the world. Within two years it had been covered by one of the greatest voices in Gospel music history. And in October 2023 — four years after its release — it stood on the stage of the GMA Dove Awards in Nashville as Song of the Year. The song that began on a country road with a phone and a grateful heart had become the most celebrated worship song of its era.
Jenn Johnson: The Woman Behind the Voice
Jennifer “Jenn” Johnson was born on April 15, 1982, and grew up in the orbit of Bethel Church in Redding, California — one of the most influential evangelical churches in contemporary American Christianity. As a teenager, she found herself drawn deeply into worship, and it was at Bethel that she met Brian Johnson, son of the church’s senior pastor Bill Johnson. They married in 2000, and in doing so she became not just a member of Bethel’s community but a central architect of its worship culture.
Together, Brian and Jenn Johnson have been leading worship at Bethel Church for over 25 years. In 2001, they released their debut live worship album Undone as Brian & Jenn Johnson. But it was as part of the collective known as Bethel Music — which they co-founded — that their impact became global. Bethel Music is not merely a worship band. It is a worship community: a collective of resident songwriters, worship leaders, and musicians at Bethel Church who record live worship services and release them to the world. The collective has produced some of the most widely sung worship music of the past two decades, including “This Is Amazing Grace” (Phil Wickham), “No Longer Slaves,” “Raise a Hallelujah,” and dozens of others.
Jenn became President of Bethel Music in 2021 — a role she had effectively been fulfilling for years before the title was formalized. She is also the founder of Lovely by Jenn Johnson, a lifestyle brand focused on wholeness and beauty for women, and the author of the book All Things Lovely (2021). Premier Christianity magazine identified “Goodness of God” as the third-most sung worship song in the UK according to CCLI data — a staggering testament to a woman who began her worship ministry as a teenager in a California church and never stopped.
Her five children — Haley, Téa, Braden, Ryder Moses, and Malachi Judah — are woven through the fabric of her music. Two of them, Ryder Moses and Malachi Judah, were adopted. And it is from the journey of adoption — specifically the adoption of Ryder Moses — that “Goodness of God” was born.
Ryder Moses: The Adoption That Changed Everything
Ryder Moses Johnson. The name itself is a theological statement. “Ryder” suggests a journey — someone on the move. “Moses” means “drawn out of the water” — but in Jenn and Brian’s intentional selection, they understood it as pointing to a deeper meaning: deliverer, one rescued in order to rescue others. Ryder Moses: adopted deliverer. A child drawn out of one situation and placed into a family, just as Moses was drawn from the Nile and placed into Pharaoh’s household — and then used to deliver a nation.
The adoption process is rarely simple or painless. For the Johnsons, it involved a long season of waiting, uncertainty, paperwork, prayer, and the particular kind of emotional exhaustion that comes from loving a child before you can hold them. And it was during this season — specifically in the period after they had finally brought Ryder home — that Jenn found herself driving on a country road in northern California, overcome with gratitude.
In her own words, as shared in multiple interviews and summarized powerfully in her conversation with Worship Leader magazine: “I just was so overcome with the goodness of God in my life and that’s my song, you know, because God has just walked me through hell and high water and His voice and the power of His word have gotten me through everything and it’s my anchor.” She grabbed her phone — not a notebook, not a piano, not a recording setup — and sang what was in her heart into the phone’s voice memo app while driving. What came out was not a polished song. It was a testimony. A declaration. An overflowing of a heart that had seen God be faithful in the hardest places and could not stay silent about it.
Those raw recorded words became the seed of “Goodness of God.” Jenn later brought the melody and the heart of the song to a co-writing session that included her husband Brian Johnson, as well as professional CCM songwriters Ed Cash, Ben Fielding (of Hillsong Worship), and Jason Ingram. Together, they shaped the rough material into the structured, singable, theologically rich song that the world would come to know.
The Songwriters: A Team of Five
“Goodness of God” carries five writing credits — an unusually collaborative origin for a worship song that feels so intimate and personal. Each songwriter brought something essential to the final result.
Jenn Johnson provided the heart — the lived experience, the melody fragment, the emotional core. The song is, first and foremost, her testimony. Without her voice and her story, there is no song.
Brian Johnson — her husband and longtime musical partner — helped develop the musical structure and theological depth. Brian is himself an accomplished songwriter and worship leader at Bethel, and his fingerprints are on many of Bethel Music’s most enduring songs.
Ed Cash is one of the most decorated producers and co-writers in contemporary Christian music. He has written or co-written some of the most widely sung songs of the past two decades, including “How He Loves,” “Your Grace Is Enough,” and material for Chris Tomlin, Christy Nockels, and countless others. Cash also produced “Goodness of God,” handling the sonic architecture of the recording that would be released on Victory.
Ben Fielding is an Australian songwriter and worship leader with Hillsong Worship, whose credits include “What a Beautiful Name,” “This I Believe (The Creed),” and “King of Kings.” His contribution to “Goodness of God” connects the song to the broader global worship movement that Hillsong and Bethel have jointly shaped over the past two decades.
Jason Ingram is a Nashville-based songwriter and producer with multiple GMA Dove Awards to his name, known for his work with Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher, and Crowder. His expertise in shaping lyrics for congregational singability — clarity, repetition, emotional arc — helped give “Goodness of God” the structure that makes it so easy for a congregation to learn and internalize.
Scripture Foundation: Psalm 23 and the Pursuing God
The theological heart of “Goodness of God” is anchored most directly in Psalm 23:6 — one of the most famous verses in the entire Bible:
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” — Psalm 23:6 (ESV)
The bridge of “Goodness of God” — “Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me” — is a direct and deliberate paraphrase of this verse, and the Hebrew behind the English word “follow” is the key to understanding why. The Hebrew word used in Psalm 23:6 is radaph, which means not merely to walk behind or accompany, but to pursue, to chase, to run after. It is the same word used for a pursuer or an enemy in hot pursuit. Machias Valley Baptist Church’s Pastor Zach explained it this way: “God often has to drive us, push and prod us, to go down the path we would rather not tread. Yet when we do, not only does He Himself follow us — ‘Goodness’ with a capital ‘G’ — but ‘goodness’ follows; that is, good results follow our obedience.”
The songwriters understood what most casual readers of Psalm 23 miss: David is not describing a gentle, passive God who happens to be nearby. He is describing a God who pursues His people with goodness and mercy the way a determined hunter pursues prey. The goodness of God is not waiting for you to deserve it. It is running after you — through the valley of the shadow of death, through the seasons you didn’t choose, through the roads you drove in tears with a phone recording your prayers.
The song also draws richly from several other scriptural streams. The opening lines echo Exodus 33:19, where God declares to Moses: “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you.” Psalm 89:1 in the Amplified Bible reads: “I will sing of the goodness and lovingkindness of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness from generation to generation” — the theological DNA of the chorus. Psalm 34:8 — “Taste and see that the Lord is good” — and Psalm 27:13 — “I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” — provide further roots. And the bridge’s language of surrender — “With my life laid down, I surrender now, I give You everything” — echoes Romans 12:1: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Lyrical Analysis: Every Line a Declaration
Verse 1 — Morning to Night
I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
The opening words — “I love You, Lord” — are arresting in their simplicity. This is not the language of theology from a distance. It is the language of relationship. The decision to open a worship song with “I love You” is rare and bold; it assumes an intimacy with God that the song will then spend its remaining lines justifying. “Mercy never fails me” is a claim of lifelong faithfulness — not a good season or a favorable moment, but a consistent, unbroken track record. “From the moment that I wake up until I lay my head” covers the entire arc of a day — morning prayers to evening rest — and says: every moment of every day, He has been there. The verse ends with a decision: “I will sing.” Not “I feel like singing” or “I am moved to sing” — but “I will.” It is a choice of the will, not merely an emotion of the moment.
Chorus — The Summary of a Life
All my life You have been faithful All my life You have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
“All my life” is a sweeping, retrospective claim. It is the language of testimony, not aspiration. The singer is not hoping God will be faithful in the future. They are declaring that He already has been — from the first breath to the present moment. The phrase “so, so good” is theologically unpretentious and emotionally authentic. It doesn’t reach for a scholarly word. It says what you say when you mean it: so good. “With every breath that I am able” ties the act of worship to the very fact of biological life — as long as air fills these lungs, praise will fill this mouth. It is an echo of Psalm 150:6 and a rehearsal of eternity.
Verse 2 — Walking Through the Hard Places
I love Your voice, You have led me through the fire In the darkest night, You are close like no other I’ve known You as a Father, I’ve known You as a Friend And I have lived in the goodness of God
The second verse is where the song goes deeper than celebration into testimony. “You have led me through the fire” — this is not a metaphor for mild difficulty. It is the language of the furnace, of Daniel 3, of the refiner’s fire in Malachi 3. Jenn Johnson has said in her own words that “God has just walked me through hell and high water.” This verse is the honest acknowledgment of that. And the declaration is not “You rescued me from the fire” but “You led me through it.” The fire was real. The darkness was real. And God was closer in it than He is in the easy seasons — “close like no other.” The verse then moves from the fires of life to the character of God: Father and Friend. Creator-authority and covenant-intimacy. Both at once. And the final line — “I have lived in the goodness of God” — is the conclusion of a life examined: wherever I have been, whatever I have walked through, I have lived there. In His goodness. Always.
Bridge — Surrender and Pursuit
Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me With my life laid down, I surrender now I give You everything Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me
The bridge is the emotional and theological climax. “Running after me” — radaph — the pursuing God of Psalm 23. But here is what makes the bridge theologically rich rather than merely poetic: the response to being pursued is not to run faster or to stand still and receive passively — it is to lay down your life and surrender. “With my life laid down, I surrender now, I give You everything.” When you know that the One running after you is the God of goodness and not a threat, the only rational response is to stop running and fall down in worship. The bridge is the moment in the song where testimony becomes surrender, and gratitude becomes consecration.
Timeline: From Phone Recording to Dove Award
Year
Event
1982
Jenn Johnson born April 15 in Redding, California
2000
Jenn marries Brian Johnson; joins Bethel Church worship leadership
2001
Brian & Jenn Johnson release debut live worship album Undone
2001
Bethel Music collective formally established; Jenn is a founding member
2017–2018
Jenn and Brian Johnson begin the adoption process for Ryder Moses Johnson (“adopted deliverer”)
2018
Jenn sings the raw melody and lyrics of “Goodness of God” into her phone while driving on a country road after bringing Ryder Moses home; the voice memo becomes the foundation of the song
2018–2019
Co-writing sessions with Brian Johnson, Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, and Jason Ingram; the song is developed, structured, and produced by Ed Cash
January 4, 2019
“Goodness of God” released as a promotional single ahead of the Victory album
January 25, 2019
Bethel Music’s Victory album released; “Goodness of God” is track 3
November 1, 2019
Radio single version released digitally
November 8, 2019
Song begins play on Christian radio stations; peaks at No. 15 on the US Hot Christian Songs chart
2020
Nominated for GMA Dove Award for Worship Recorded Song of the Year; Bethel Music releases alternate version on the album Peace
2021
CeCe Winans records her version of “Goodness of God” for her live album Believe For It; Jenn Johnson becomes President of Bethel Music
2021–2022
CeCe Winans’ version peaks at No. 6 on Hot Christian Songs and No. 2 on Hot Gospel Songs; surpasses 48 million streams and 320 million video views; becomes a #1 Billboard Gospel Radio hit; CeCe wins Grammy for Best Gospel Album (Believe For It) at the 2022 Grammy Awards
September 2022
CeCe Winans releases official music video for her version of “Goodness of God”; over 100 million views on TikTok alone
October 20, 2023
“Goodness of God” wins Song of the Year at the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards in Nashville — presented by MultiTracks.com — four years after its initial release
2024–present
Song remains among the top-ranked worship songs globally on CCLI; listed as third-most sung worship song in the UK; continues to be sung in churches in dozens of languages on every continent
CeCe Winans: The Cover That Changed Everything
When CeCe Winans — the most awarded female Gospel artist of all time, with 15 Grammy Awards and 27 Dove Awards — chose to record “Goodness of God” for her 2021 live album Believe For It, she did not merely add a cover version to a catalog. She gave the song a second life that introduced it to an entirely different audience and took it to heights it had not previously reached.
CeCe’s version peaked at No. 6 on the Hot Christian Songs chart and No. 2 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Radio Chart. It accumulated over 48 million streams and an astonishing 320 million video views combined across platforms. On TikTok alone, her version gathered over 100 million views — making it one of the most viral Gospel videos in the platform’s history. At the 2022 Grammy Awards, her album Believe For It won Best Gospel Album, and the song was central to that recognition.
What CeCe brought to “Goodness of God” was the weight of a 40-year career of standing on stages and declaring the goodness of God through every personal and national storm. When she sang “I’ve known You as a Father, I’ve known You as a Friend,” audiences who knew her story heard the testimony behind the testimony. The song crossed from contemporary worship into Gospel, from predominantly white evangelical spaces into predominantly Black Gospel spaces, and in doing so it became one of the truly ecumenical worship anthems of the modern era — sung by virtually every tradition, in virtually every style.
Notable Recordings and Performances
Artist / Recording
Notes
Bethel Music & Jenn Johnson
Victory (2019); original live recording at Bethel Church, Redding, CA; the definitive original version
CeCe Winans
Believe For It (2021); peaked No. 6 Hot Christian Songs, No. 2 Hot Gospel Songs, No. 1 Billboard Gospel Radio; over 320M combined video views; Grammy Award-winning album
Bethel Music (instrumental)
Without Words: Genesis (2019); released November 15, 2019
Bethel Music (alternate)
Peace (2020); released April 10, 2020
Various worship teams
One of the most widely covered contemporary worship songs globally; arrangements in dozens of languages and styles across every denomination
South Fellowship, Machias Valley Baptist, and thousands of local churches
Adopted as a congregational standard in churches of every size and tradition; frequently paired with sermon series on Psalm 23, faithfulness, and God’s character
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote “Goodness of God”?
“Goodness of God” was co-written by Jenn Johnson, Brian Johnson, Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, and Jason Ingram. It was originally performed and recorded by Bethel Music and Jenn Johnson, released on the album Victory on January 25, 2019. Ed Cash also served as producer.
What inspired Jenn Johnson to write “Goodness of God”?
Jenn Johnson was inspired by the adoption of her fourth child, Ryder Moses Johnson (whose name means “adopted deliverer”). While driving on a country road in northern California after bringing Ryder home, she was overwhelmed with gratitude for God’s faithfulness and began singing into her phone. Those recorded words became the foundation of the song.
What Bible verse is “Goodness of God” based on?
The song’s bridge — “Your goodness is running after, it’s running after me” — is a direct paraphrase of Psalm 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” The Hebrew word for “follow” (radaph) means “to run after, pursue.” The song also draws on Psalm 89:1, Psalm 34:8, Psalm 27:13, Exodus 33:19, and Romans 12:1.
Did “Goodness of God” win any major awards?
Yes. “Goodness of God” won Song of the Year at the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards on October 20, 2023 — four years after its initial release. CeCe Winans’ 2021 cover version also helped her album Believe For It win Best Gospel Album at the 2022 Grammy Awards. CeCe’s version reached No. 1 on the Billboard Gospel Radio Chart.
Who is Jenn Johnson?
Jenn Johnson (born April 15, 1982) is Co-Founder and President of Bethel Music, Senior Worship Pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California, author of All Things Lovely (2021), founder of Lovely by Jenn Johnson, and mother of five children. She and her husband Brian Johnson have been leading worship at Bethel for over 25 years. “Goodness of God” is considered the defining song of her career and is currently listed as one of the top-three most sung worship songs in the United Kingdom by CCLI.
Legacy: What Makes a Song Last
It is worth pausing to ask: why does “Goodness of God” connect so deeply, so broadly, and so enduringly? Many worship songs are released every year. Most are forgotten within months. A few last a decade. Very few become the kind of song that a church in Nigeria and a church in Nebraska and a church in South Korea all sing on the same Sunday morning, with equal conviction and equal tears.
The answer is not primarily musical, though the music is excellent. The key of A-flat, the moderate rock tempo, the simple verse-chorus-bridge structure — these are well-crafted elements, but they don’t explain the song’s reach. The answer is theological and testimonial simultaneously. “Goodness of God” does something that the greatest worship songs always do: it puts into universally singable words a truth so personal that every individual worshipper feels it was written specifically about their own life.
When the congregation sings “I love You, Lord, for Your mercy never fails me,” they are not singing about Jenn Johnson’s adoption story. They are singing about their own story — their own fires, their own dark nights, their own moments of being held in hands they could not see. When they sing “Your goodness is running after me,” they are not thinking about Psalm 23:6 in the abstract. They are thinking about the moment they were sure they had gone too far, wandered too long, failed too completely — and discovered that Goodness had been running after them all along.
That is the gift Jenn Johnson gave the church when she grabbed her phone on that country road. Not a performance. Not a production. A testimony. And testimonies, when they are true, when they are rooted in Scripture, and when they are offered with the kind of transparency that costs something — those are the seeds that grow into songs that outlast the moment and outlive the singer. “Goodness of God” will be sung long after every chart position is forgotten, long after every streaming number is obsolete, long after the 54th Annual GMA Dove Awards is a footnote in a history book. It will be sung because the God it describes is still pursuing people on country roads, in adoption waiting rooms, in darkest nights and hardest seasons — and He is still running after them with the same relentless, irresistible goodness He always has been.
Few hymns in the history of Christian worship have moved as many hearts or prompted as many decisions of faith as Just As I Am. Written in 1835 by Charlotte Elliott, this beloved hymn has stood the test of time, appearing in hymnals across denominational lines and echoing through revival tents, church sanctuaries, and personal quiet times for nearly two centuries.
The Story Behind the Hymn
Charlotte Elliott was an English poet and hymnist who wrote Just As I Am during a period of deep personal struggle. Suffering from poor health and feeling spiritually restless, she wrestled with whether she was worthy enough to come to God. It was the encouragement of Swiss evangelist César Malan that led her to the life-changing realization: she could come to Christ exactly as she was — not after cleaning up her life, not after earning worthiness, but just as she was.
That moment of surrender became the seed of one of the most powerful invitational hymns ever penned. Elliott wrote the words as a reminder — first to herself, then to the world — that God’s grace meets us where we are.
The Lyrics and Their Meaning
Each verse of the hymn builds on the theme of coming to God with nothing held back. The opening verse arrives without excuse, relying solely on Christ’s atoning sacrifice. Subsequent verses address coming with doubt and fear, a burdened soul, blindness and poverty of spirit, and finally — full yielding and surrender.
The repeated refrain, O Lamb of God, I come!, is both a cry and a confidence — the voice of a soul that has stopped striving and started trusting.
Its Role in Christian History
Perhaps no figure is more associated with Just As I Am than the late evangelist Billy Graham. For decades, this hymn was sung at the close of every Billy Graham Crusade as thousands of people responded to the gospel invitation. The hymn became synonymous with the moment of decision — that sacred space between conviction and commitment.
Countless testimonies have been shared by people who found faith while this hymn played in the background. It has accompanied altar calls in small rural churches and stadium-sized evangelistic events alike. Its message transcends culture, background, and era.
Why This Hymn Still Matters Today
In an age of performance and self-improvement, Just As I Am is a radical countercultural statement. It reminds us that God does not require us to fix ourselves before coming to Him. The gospel is not a reward for the righteous — it is a rescue for the broken.
At Victory Baptist Church in Carthage, we treasure hymns like this one because they carry deep theological truth in memorable, singable form. They connect us to generations of believers who came before us and anchor us in the unchanging Word of God.
Whether you are hearing this hymn for the first time or the hundredth, the invitation remains the same: Come. Just as you are. God’s grace is greater than your failures, His mercy wider than your doubts, and His love deeper than your shame.
Sing It, Pray It, Live It
Take time this week to sing or read through Just As I Am slowly and prayerfully. Let each verse be a prayer. Let the refrain be your response. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, this hymn is an open door — a personal invitation from a God who loves you unconditionally.
And if you are a longtime believer who has grown weary or distant, let these words call you back to the simplicity of the cross: just as I am, Thy love unknown has broken every barrier down — now to be Thine, yea Thine alone, O Lamb of God, I come.
We would love to worship alongside you. Join us at Victory Baptist Church in Carthage for our Sunday services and experience the joy of congregational hymn singing together.
How a vacation drive through Scotland during Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee gave Pastor Jack Hayford a song that would reshape congregational worship for generations — and why it still rings out in churches around the world more than four decades later
Introduction: When Royalty Points to a Greater King
There is something about the sight of genuine royalty that does something to the human heart. The flags. The fanfare. The processions. The sense that the person before you occupies an entirely different order of existence from ordinary life — that they carry in their person a dignity and authority that commands reverence. Even people who claim to have no interest in monarchy find themselves stopping in their tracks when the royal standard appears on the horizon.
In the summer of 1977, an American pastor named Jack Hayford was driving through the rolling landscape of Great Britain — through England, Wales, and up into Scotland — experiencing exactly that sensation. The entire country was alive with color and celebration. Queen Elizabeth II was marking the 25th anniversary of her coronation, and the British people’s love for their monarch filled every street and village with a warmth and loyalty that this Californian found deeply moving. But as Jack and his wife Anna drove from castle to castle, from one symbol of royal majesty to the next, something more than admiration for the Queen began stirring in his heart.
A question formed: If people respond to earthly royalty with this kind of loyalty, dedication, and joy — what should our response to the King of all kings look like? From that question came the song “Majesty, Worship His Majesty” — a forty-five-word expression of royal praise that would become one of the most widely sung worship songs of the 20th century, one of only a handful of contemporary worship songs included in The United Methodist Hymnal, and the song most closely associated with the name of one of America’s most beloved “pastors to pastors.”
Jack Hayford: Pastor, Teacher, and “Pastor to Pastors”
Jack William Hayford was born on June 25, 1934, in Los Angeles, California — entering the world with a life-threatening illness that his family believed was healed through miraculous intercession. That experience of divine intervention at the very beginning of his life set the tone for everything that followed: a life lived in constant awareness of a God who is not distant, not indifferent, and not limited by human expectations.
Hayford felt called to ministry early and pursued it with extraordinary dedication. He was ordained in the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel and earned his theological training at Life Pacific University (then known as LIFE Bible College), where he later served as president from 1977 to 1982. But it was as a local church pastor that he made his most enduring mark.
In 1969, Jack and Anna Hayford arrived at a struggling Foursquare congregation in Van Nuys, California — the First Foursquare Church of Van Nuys — with just 18 members. Over the next thirty years, under his pastoral leadership and worship philosophy, it grew into one of the largest and most influential churches in southern California, eventually known as The Church on the Way, with a membership exceeding 12,000. Christianity Today magazine described him as “the Pentecostal Gold Standard” — a man who combined charismatic conviction with theological depth, pastoral warmth, and ecumenical generosity that drew leaders from every tradition to his door. He was, by widespread consensus, a “pastor to pastors” — the person other leaders called when they needed wisdom, prayer, or simply someone who had navigated every season of ministry with integrity intact.
Over the course of his life, Hayford authored more than 50 books, wrote more than 500 hymns and choruses, founded The King’s University in 1997 (originally in Los Angeles, later in Southlake, Texas), and served as President of The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel from 2004 to 2009. He married his beloved Anna in 1955; they were together for 63 years until her death in 2018. He later married Valarie Lemire. He died peacefully in his San Fernando Valley home on January 8, 2023, at the age of 88, having eaten dinner with his wife and spoken with one of his grandchildren the evening before. His memorial service was held on February 18, 2023.
Of all his hundreds of compositions, one song stood above the rest. One song became so identified with his name that when people across the world learned of his passing, the tribute they returned to again and again was not a Scripture, not a book title, not a sermon — but a song. That song was “Majesty.”
The Origin Story: A Royal Vacation and a Royal Revelation
In his own words, from his essay “The Birth of Majesty” published on his official ministry website, Jack Hayford describes the song’s genesis:
“In 1977 my wife Anna and I spent our vacation in Great Britain, traveling throughout the land from the south country and Wales to the northern parts of Scotland. It was the year of the Silver Jubilee — the 25th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation — and the spirit of celebration and honor for royalty was everywhere. The enthusiasm of the English people for their monarch was infectious. I began to realize that Christ wants His church to have the same sense of loyalty and fellowship.”
The couple visited historic sites including Blenheim Palace — the birthplace of Winston Churchill and one of England’s grandest stately homes — and traveled north through Wales into Scotland, where the castles and highland landscapes added a further dimension of ancient majesty to the journey. The flags were flying. The people were celebrating. And everywhere they went, the symbols of royalty — the heraldry, the pageantry, the unashamed public deference to a sovereign — were on full display.
As they drove, something shifted in Hayford’s understanding. The Foursquare Church’s official tribute after his death put it this way: he became mindful “that the provisions of Christ for the believer not only included the forgiveness for sin, but provided a restoration to a royal relationship with God as sons and daughters born into the family through His Majesty, Our Savior Jesus Christ.” He was filled, he later wrote, “with a powerful sense of Christ Jesus’ royalty, dignity, and majesty.” He seemed to feel something new of what it meant to belong to the King.
Then, on one of those drives — the precise location lost to memory but the moment itself unforgettable — the opening lyrics and melody of “Majesty” came to his heart all at once. He did not stop the car. He continued driving and asked Anna, who had a notebook beside her on the seat, to write down the words and melody line as he dictated them. “Because of this,” Hayford later wrote with obvious delight, “she still laughingly insists that she ‘wrote’ ‘Majesty’!”
The basic structure of the song was complete in that car. After returning home to Van Nuys, California, Hayford refined and completed it. It was first published in 1978 (some sources cite 1981 for the formal copyright registration with Rocksmith Music) and was introduced to the wider world through the growing worship music movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s. CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International) assigned it song number 1527 — a number that places it among the earliest contemporary worship songs to be formally licensed for congregational use.
The Scripture Foundation
Hayford’s favorite Scripture — the one he identified as most closely connected to “Majesty” — was Psalm 93:1:
“The LORD reigns, He is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed in majesty and armed with strength.” — Psalm 93:1
But the song draws from a wider stream of royal praise passages throughout Scripture. One of the most relevant is 1 Chronicles 29:11, which David prayed at the dedication of the temple materials he had assembled for his son Solomon:
“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.” — 1 Chronicles 29:11
The song also echoes Revelation 4 and 5, where the heavenly throne room erupts in the declaration that the Lamb who was slain is worthy to receive “power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12). Hayford was not simply drawing a poetic analogy between British royalty and Christ’s kingship. He was pointing to the reality that the entire biblical narrative culminates in the enthronement of the King of all kings — and that earthly royalty, at its best, is a pale shadow of that ultimate sovereignty.
The phrase “Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all kings” is the song’s most explicitly Christological statement. It compresses the entire gospel into seven words: death, resurrection, and eternal reign. The One who stooped to die is the same One now exalted to the throne. Earthly majesty is temporary. His is eternal.
Lyrical Analysis: Every Word Counts
“Majesty” is one of the shortest major worship songs ever written. At just 45 words, it packs extraordinary theological density into an almost crystalline economy of language. There is not a filler word in the entire text. Let’s examine it line by line.
Majesty, worship His Majesty; Unto Jesus be all glory, honor and praise.
The song opens with its title word as a direct command: worship His Majesty. “Majesty” here is not primarily an adjective describing God — it is a title, a throne name. It declares that the One being addressed occupies the supreme position of royal authority in the universe. The second line does what no earthly court would dare do: it directs ALL glory, honor, and praise to Jesus — not to the institution, not to the church, not to the leader, not to any tradition. Everything flows to Him.
Majesty, kingdom authority, Flows from His throne, unto His own, His anthem raise.
“Kingdom authority” is a carefully chosen phrase. Hayford understood worship not merely as an emotional experience but as a political act — an alignment of the worshipper with the sovereign rule of Christ over all things. When believers gather to worship, they are not simply expressing private feelings. They are acknowledging a kingdom, affirming a throne, and placing themselves within the order of that kingdom as “His own.” The phrase “His own” is both intimate (we belong to Him) and royal (we are His subjects, His inheritance). “His anthem raise” calls the congregation to active proclamation — not passive reception of blessing, but active declaration of the King’s greatness.
So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus; Magnify, come glorify, Christ Jesus the King.
The bridge functions as a musical fanfare — a trumpet call to worship. Three verbs in quick succession: exalt, magnify, glorify. All three are transitive — they require an object, and in each case, the object is the same Person. Jesus. Christ Jesus the King. Hayford has been careful throughout the song to be explicitly Christological rather than generically theistic. This is not a song about a vague divine presence or a spiritual force. It is a song about a named Person — Jesus — who has a specific identity: He is the Christ, the anointed one, the long-awaited Messiah; and He is the King, the sovereign ruler of all creation.
Majesty, worship His Majesty; Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all kings.
The final section returns to the opening declaration and then closes with the hymn’s most theologically packed line: “Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all kings.” Past tense — died. Present tense — glorified. Eternal title — King of all kings. The crucifixion is not denied or minimized. It is the very foundation of the glorification. He is King precisely because He was willing to die. The title “King of all kings” draws from Revelation 19:16, where Christ is revealed at His return with the name “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” written on His robe and on His thigh. Hayford was inviting every congregation that sang this song to rehearse the confession of the New Jerusalem — to practice, in the present tense, the worship that will fill eternity.
Timeline: The Life of a Song
Year
Event
1934
Jack William Hayford born June 25 in Los Angeles, California
1955
Marries Anna Smith; begins full-time ministry
1969
Appointed founding pastor of The Church on the Way, Van Nuys, CA — 18 members at founding
1977
“Majesty” composed during vacation drive through England, Wales, and Scotland during Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee; Anna writes down the words while Jack drives
1977–1982
Hayford serves as President of Life Pacific University while also pastoring The Church on the Way
Song spreads rapidly through evangelical and charismatic churches; arranged by Eugene Thomas for broader use
1989
Included in The United Methodist Hymnal (#176) — one of very few contemporary worship songs to achieve formal denominational hymnal status
1990s
The Church on the Way grows to over 12,000 members; Hayford recognized as one of America’s leading megachurch pastors
1997
Hayford founds The King’s University in Los Angeles
1999
Steps down as senior pastor of The Church on the Way after 30 years
2004–2009
Serves as President of The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel
2018
Anna Hayford passes away after 63 years of marriage
January 8, 2023
Jack Hayford passes away peacefully at home at age 88; tributes pour in from around the world; “Majesty” rings out across thousands of churches in his honor
2023–present
“Majesty” continues to be sung in churches worldwide; listed in Our Great Redeemer’s Praise (United Methodist new collection); rated among top 100 contemporary hymns globally
Notable Recordings and Performances
Artist / Context
Notes
Jack Hayford / Church on the Way
Original congregational recording; introduced to the broader church through Foursquare and charismatic networks
Ron Kenoly
One of the earliest and most widely heard CCM recordings; introduced “Majesty” to a new generation of contemporary worshippers
Michael W. Smith
Performed live at numerous large-scale events; helped cement the song’s status as a cross-denominational standard
Maranatha! Music
Included on multiple praise compilations; spread the song into tens of thousands of evangelical churches through the 1980s–90s
Life Pacific University
Recorded a special remix of “Majesty” in tribute to Hayford in early 2023 following his passing; he was described as being “thrilled to hear it”
Various artists
Covered by choirs, worship teams, and solo artists across every denomination and on every continent
Hayford’s Own Interpretation: What the Song Means
In his essay “The Birth of Majesty,” Hayford offered his own theological interpretation of the song he had written. His words are worth reading in full:
“‘Majesty’ is not merely a call to worship the Lord — it is a declaration that He is worthy of that worship. He is fully worthy. ‘Majesty’ is also a statement of the fact that our worship, when begotten in spirit and in truth, can align us with His Throne in such a way that we draw on His life, power, and resources. His kingdom authority flows from His throne — and can flow from our lives as we worship Him.”
This interpretation reveals the profound pastoral purpose behind the song. Hayford was not simply writing a beautiful expression of adoration. He was writing a theological statement about the nature of worship itself: that genuine worship is not merely vertical (human being to God) but also transformational — it changes the worshipper, aligns them with heaven’s purposes, and enables them to live as citizens of the kingdom they declare. When we say “kingdom authority flows from His throne unto His own,” we are confessing that as His own — as His people — we have access to the power and authority of that kingdom. Worship is the doorway.
Hymnologist Donald Hustad, one of the most respected voices in 20th-century Christian music scholarship, noted that Hayford’s concern in writing the song was pastoral as much as theological: “We need to cultivate a sense of the majestic presence of God. He is a close friend, by his grace, but he is also the majestic, holy, awesome God of the universe and we need constant reminding not to take His royal presence lightly.”
Why “Majesty” Crossed Every Denominational Line
One of the most remarkable facts about “Majesty” is that it achieved something almost unheard of for a contemporary worship song written in the charismatic/Pentecostal tradition: it was formally included in The United Methodist Hymnal (#176). For a song to cross from the praise-and-worship world into one of the mainline Protestant church’s official hymnals is an extraordinarily rare achievement. It speaks both to the song’s theological clarity and its musical accessibility.
The reason is not hard to identify. “Majesty” contains no distinctively Pentecostal theology. It does not reference spiritual gifts, does not use charismatic vocabulary, and does not presuppose any particular worship style. What it does contain is something every Christian tradition agrees on: Jesus Christ is Lord. He died. He is glorified. He is King of all kings. He deserves all glory, honor, and praise. Those are not charismatic convictions. They are catholic — in the original sense of the word — convictions: held universally by the whole church across every tradition and every century.
Hayford himself was a deeply ecumenical figure. He was known for his ability to build bridges across denominational lines, and his ministry drew leaders from Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican, and Catholic backgrounds who found in him a man who loved Jesus more than he loved a label. “Majesty” is the musical expression of that ecumenism: a song so Christologically focused, so theologically sound, and so musically simple that the whole church can sing it together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who wrote the worship song “Majesty”?
“Majesty, Worship His Majesty” was written by Jack William Hayford (1934–2023), founding pastor of The Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California. It was composed in 1977 during a vacation in Great Britain and first published in 1978 by Rocksmith Music.
What inspired Jack Hayford to write “Majesty”?
The song was inspired by a 1977 vacation through England, Wales, and Scotland during Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee — the 25th anniversary of her coronation. Observing the British people’s deep loyalty and reverence for their monarch, Hayford was moved to reflect on Christ’s far greater kingship and the church’s call to a similar — and even deeper — devotion.
What does “Majesty” mean theologically?
According to Hayford himself, “Majesty” is both a declaration that Christ is fully worthy of worship and a statement that genuine worship aligns the believer with God’s throne and His kingdom authority. The song affirms the death, resurrection, and eternal reign of Jesus Christ as the King of all kings.
Is “Majesty” in any denominational hymnals?
Yes. “Majesty” appears in The United Methodist Hymnal (#176) — one of very few contemporary worship songs written in the charismatic tradition to be formally included in a mainline Protestant hymnal. It has also appeared in Methodist, Foursquare, and many other denominational songbooks worldwide.
When did Jack Hayford die?
Jack Hayford passed away peacefully at his home in the San Fernando Valley, California, on January 8, 2023, at the age of 88. His memorial service was held on February 18, 2023, and was available to watch online. At the time of his passing, “Majesty” rang out across thousands of churches worldwide in tribute to his life and legacy.
Legacy: The Song That Outlived Its Author
Jack Hayford is gone, but “Majesty” is not. Every Sunday, in churches from Van Nuys to Nairobi, from Seoul to São Paulo, congregations rise to sing the forty-five words that came to a California pastor on a country road in Scotland in the summer of 1977. They may not know the story of the Silver Jubilee, the drive through the Highlands, or Anna Hayford’s laughing claim to have “written” the song from the passenger seat. But they know what the words mean.
They know that Jesus died. They know He is glorified. They know He is King of all kings. And in the act of singing those words together — of exalting, magnifying, and glorifying His name as a body — they do exactly what Hayford always said the song was designed to do: they align themselves with the throne, draw on His kingdom authority, and take their place as His own, raising His anthem.
That is the legacy of “Majesty.” Not a chart position. Not an award. Not a streaming number. A legacy of congregations, generation after generation, turning their faces toward the King and saying — because they believe it, because they choose it, because nothing in earth or heaven is more true — Majesty, worship His Majesty. Unto Jesus be all glory, honor and praise.
How a young man’s private moment with God — and a song he almost never shared — became one of the most beloved worship anthems in church history
The Unfinished Chorus That Changed Everything
It was the end of a long night at a Christian songwriters’ gathering, and Pete Sanchez Jr. had already played his two best songs. The room had heard dozens of writers perform throughout the evening, and the host was wrapping things up. Almost as an afterthought, he turned to Pete and asked: “Do you have anything else before we close?”
Pete hesitated. He had one more thing — but he wasn’t sure it counted. “I have this unfinished little chorus,” he said. “Let’s hear it,” the host replied.
So Pete sat at the piano and began to play and sing something simple, something he had been turning over in private for months — something he had never intended for anyone else’s ears:
“For Thou, O Lord, art high above all the earth…Thou art exalted far above all gods…”
And then came the chorus:
“I exalt Thee… I exalt Thee… I exalt Thee, O Lord!”
Something happened in that room that Pete Sanchez later described as an “out of body experience.” The entire gathering — every songwriter, every musician present — rose to their feet. Hands went up. The room filled with worship. Nobody asked. Nobody prompted them. They simply couldn’t stay seated.
The unfinished little chorus had found its congregation. And it would never be just Pete’s again.
Pete Sanchez Jr.: A Man Called Back to the Psalms
To understand “I Exalt Thee,” you have to understand the unusual circumstances that produced it. Pete Sanchez Jr. was, by his mid-twenties, already an accomplished Christian musician. He had served as a music director, a youth director, and a touring musician with a Christian group called One Song. By any measure of ministry career, he was doing well.
But Pete was newly married and wrestling with something personal. He had come from a divorced family — a wound that cut deep — and he was determined above all else to be a good husband and a good father. The ministry career, the performance, the platform — none of it mattered if his home fell apart. So he made a quiet, deliberate decision: he withdrew from active ministry.
He turned instead to the Psalms. Not as a songwriter looking for raw material, but as a man looking for God. His plan was straightforward: he would meditate on each psalm, one by one, and write a song that expressed what he found. It was a private discipline — a daily act of devotion between him and the Lord, with no audience in mind and no publication planned.
He worked his way through the psalter slowly, prayerfully. And then he arrived at Psalm 97:9.
The Verse That Stopped Him Cold
Psalm 97:9, in the King James Version that Pete was reading, reads:
“For thou, LORD, art high above all the earth: thou art exalted far above all gods.”
The verse stopped him. Something about it felt immense — not just as poetry, but as a declaration of reality. This was not a polite religious sentiment. This was a cosmological claim: that the God of Israel towers above every power, every competing claim, every false god that has ever seduced a human heart. The word translated “exalted” in Hebrew is nā’lāh — to be lifted up to an incomparable height, to be set apart as supreme.
Pete went to his piano. A melody came quickly — but only part of a song. He had a verse, but no chorus. He had a declaration about God, but no personal response to it. The song felt incomplete, unresolved, like a question without an answer.
He set it aside. He came back to it. He set it aside again. For the next 18 months, he kept returning to those opening lines, unable to finish what he had started. Later, he would explain it simply: “The only way I can explain it is, in that moment, it seemed like I stepped into another place… it was a divine encounter.” The chorus — “I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, I exalt Thee, O Lord” — finally came. Not as clever songwriting. As response. As worship that had been waiting for its moment.
He copyrighted the song in 1976. And then, for years, he kept it mostly to himself.
Lyrical Analysis: What the Song Says and Why It Matters
The Verse — God’s Absolute Supremacy
For Thou, O Lord, art high above all the earth; Thou art exalted far above all gods.
These two lines are not metaphor — they are theological assertion drawn verbatim from Psalm 97:9. The psalmist is speaking into a world full of competing gods: the Baals of Canaan, the gods of Egypt, the idols of every nation surrounding Israel. His claim is total and uncompromising: none of them come close. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is not the strongest among many strong gods — He is exalted far above all of them, in a category entirely His own.
The phrase “high above all the earth” also establishes God’s transcendence — He is not contained within creation, not subject to its limitations. He reigns from a position that is, by definition, above every earthly throne, every human power, every circumstance that threatens to feel larger than it is. This is the theological ground on which the rest of the song stands.
Psalm 97 as a whole is a royal coronation psalm — a song celebrating God’s kingship over the whole earth. It opens with “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice!” It describes His throne founded on righteousness and justice, clouds and darkness surrounding Him, fire going before Him, lightning illuminating the world. Verse 9 is its climactic declaration: after all the drama of the preceding verses, the conclusion is this — above everything, it is the Lord who is exalted.
The Chorus — From Declaration to Devotion
I exalt Thee! I exalt Thee! I exalt Thee, O Lord! I exalt Thee! I exalt Thee! I exalt Thee, O Lord!
This is where the song pivots from theology to participation. The verse tells us who God is. The chorus asks: now what will you do with that? It is an act of the will — “I exalt Thee” — not a passive observation. The worshipper is choosing, actively and repeatedly, to lift God above everything else in their life, above every competing priority, every alternative source of security and worth.
The repetition is not redundancy — it is liturgy. The six-fold “I exalt Thee” builds like a wave, each declaration reinforcing the one before it, until the act of exaltation becomes something felt as much as said. This is the ancient logic of Hebrew poetry: not to convey information with each repetition, but to immerse the singer deeper and deeper into the reality being declared.
The word “exalt” itself — from the Latin exaltare, meaning “to raise up high” — is a strong, physical-sounding word. It implies active lifting, not passive acknowledgment. You don’t accidentally exalt someone. You make a choice. You set them in a position of honor. Every time the chorus is sung, the worshipper is consciously repositioning God above themselves, above their circumstances, above every competing claim on their allegiance.
The Structural Genius of Simplicity
One of the most fascinating things about “I Exalt Thee” — noted by worship scholars and music ministers alike — is that most of the Christian world only ever learned the chorus. The verse, which provides the entire theological foundation for the chorus’s declaration, became largely invisible as the song migrated into congregational worship. As one observer noted, this is both its greatest strength and its most significant vulnerability.
The strength: a six-word chorus that anyone can learn in thirty seconds has the power to unite an entire congregation, regardless of background or musical ability, in a single act of worship. The vulnerability: without the verse, “I exalt Thee” could become a worship reflex rather than a worship conviction — a song you sing because it sounds beautiful, rather than a song you sing because you have first been staggered by the reality it proclaims.
Pete Sanchez designed both parts to work together. The verse provides the theological argument; the chorus provides the personal response. Sung together, they form a complete arc of worship: behold who God is, then respond to who He is. That arc — statement followed by surrender — is the heartbeat of biblical praise throughout the Psalter.
Timeline: The Life of a Song
Year
Event
1975
Pete Sanchez Jr. writes the verse of “I Exalt Thee” during a personal Psalms devotional study, based on Psalm 97:9
1975–1976
Over 18 months, Pete keeps returning to the unfinished song until the chorus finally arrives in a moment he calls a “divine encounter”
1976
Pete copyrights “I Exalt Thee”
Mid-1970s
At a Christian songwriters’ gathering, Pete reluctantly shares the “unfinished chorus” — the entire room rises in spontaneous worship; he later receives a cassette of the song being sung in 10 languages
1983
Trumpeter and gospel singer Phil Driscoll records “I Exalt Thee” as the title track of his album on Sparrow Records; the album receives a Grammy nomination for Best Male Gospel Performance
1984
Phil Driscoll wins the GMA Dove Award for Instrumentalist of the Year largely on the strength of the album
1986
Pete Sanchez Jr. releases his own worship album I Exalt Thee! on Integrity’s Hosanna! Music label — further cementing the song in the praise and worship movement
1987–1990s
Integrity’s Hosanna! Music distributes the song globally through its direct-mail worship series; it becomes a staple of charismatic and evangelical worship worldwide
1990s
Petra records the song; it enters the CCM mainstream and is sung in churches across denominations
1998
Phil Driscoll re-records the album as I Exalt Thee: 1998 under his own label, adding new tracks
2000s
Hillsong Worship incorporates “I Exalt Thee” into live worship sets; Gateway Worship features Pete Sanchez in a Song Story teaching series
2022
Gateway Worship releases a full “I Exalt Thee Song Story” video featuring Dr. Pete Sanchez telling the origin story
2024
Dr. Pete Sanchez visits Mill City Church in Fort Collins, Colorado, personally sharing the story behind the song nearly 50 years after writing it
2025
Pete Sanchez receives a Distinguished Alumni Award; “I Exalt Thee” continues to be sung globally in countless languages
Phil Driscoll and the Song That Found the World
For nearly a decade after Pete Sanchez wrote “I Exalt Thee,” the song existed in a relatively small orbit — beloved by those who encountered it, but not yet globally known. That changed in 1983 when Phil Driscoll — a Grammy-winning trumpeter and gospel vocalist who had played with Blood, Sweat & Tears before his conversion — recorded it as the title track of his Sparrow Records album.
Driscoll’s version was extraordinary. His trumpet playing elevated the song into something majestically orchestral, and his powerful gospel voice gave the simple chorus an emotional weight that matched its theological depth. The album received a Grammy nomination for Best Male Gospel Performance and won Driscoll the 1984 GMA Dove Award for Instrumentalist of the Year. Suddenly, “I Exalt Thee” was being heard by millions of people who had never encountered Pete Sanchez.
This pattern — a song written in obscurity, released quietly, then catapulted into global worship through a single high-profile recording — is one that echoes throughout church music history. But what makes “I Exalt Thee” particularly remarkable is what happened next: it did not remain a CCM radio hit. It migrated into the pews and became a congregational anthem — a song that ordinary people in ordinary churches around the world could sing together and mean.
Integrity’s Hosanna! Music and the Global Spread
The song’s deepest penetration into the global church came through Integrity’s Hosanna! Music — the pioneering worship music label founded in 1985 that became the primary vehicle for distributing praise and worship music directly to churches through a subscription model. Pete Sanchez Jr. was not merely a songwriter in this ecosystem — he became an integral part of it, eventually serving as Vice President and Dean of the Integrity Worship Institute.
Through Hosanna! Music’s direct-to-church cassette and CD series, “I Exalt Thee” reached denominations and traditions that might never have heard it through CCM radio — Pentecostal churches in Africa, Baptist congregations in South America, charismatic fellowships across Asia. Pete Sanchez later recalled receiving a cassette of the song being sung in ten different languages, sent to him by a missionary who had carried it to the ends of the earth. The man who withdrew from ministry to protect his family had, through one act of private devotion, reached more people than most full-time ministers ever would.
Sanchez went on to become Executive Pastor of Worship for New Life Church in Colorado Springs and a professor of worship at multiple universities in the United States and Belgium — a career of remarkable breadth built, in part, on the foundation of a song he almost didn’t share.
Legacy and Modern Worship
“I Exalt Thee” occupies a unique place in the history of modern Christian worship. It was not born in a recording studio, a church growth movement, or a worship conference. It was born in a man’s apartment, in a season of deliberate withdrawal, in a private act of biblical meditation. That origin gives it a character that is different from many worship songs written for a stage and a sound system — it is, at its core, a song of intimacy and surrender.
Over the last four decades, it has been recorded and performed by artists spanning the entire spectrum of Christian music, from Phil Driscoll’s orchestral gospel to Petra’s rock arrangements, from Hillsong’s stadium worship to quiet acoustic renditions at small-group Bible studies. Gateway Worship has featured it extensively in their training resources. Hillsong Worship has incorporated it into their live sets. Countless churches around the world include it in weekly worship without knowing anything about the man who wrote it or the story behind it.
Notable Recordings and Covers
Artist
Recording / Context
Year
Phil Driscoll
Title track, I Exalt Thee (Sparrow Records); Grammy nominated
1983
Pete Sanchez Jr.
I Exalt Thee! album, Integrity’s Hosanna! Music
1986
Petra
Recorded and performed widely through the CCM era
1990s
Phil Driscoll
I Exalt Thee: 1998 — re-recorded album with bonus tracks
1998
Hillsong Worship
Featured in live worship sets globally; medley with “A Thousand Hallelujahs”
2000s–present
Gateway Worship
Song Story teaching series featuring Pete Sanchez Jr.
2022
Various artists
Sung in 10+ languages across six continents in churches of every denomination
Ongoing
The Man Who Almost Kept It to Himself
There is a haunting quality to the origin story of “I Exalt Thee” that deserves a moment of reflection. Pete Sanchez Jr. wrote this song with no intention of sharing it. He considered it unfinished. He thought it was too small — just a private chorus, not a real song. When he finally did share it, it was only because someone pressed him at the last moment, at the end of a long night, when he was the last person at the microphone.
This is one of the recurring patterns in the history of great worship songs: the writer almost didn’t write it, almost didn’t finish it, almost didn’t share it. The song that transforms millions begins in obscurity, reluctance, or apparent incompleteness. The songwriter who thinks they have nothing to offer turns out to have the very thing the room — and eventually the world — needed to hear.
Pete Sanchez withdrew from ministry to be a good husband and father. He did not withdraw to write a worship anthem. He withdrew to be faithful in a small, private, unglamorous way — meditating on the Psalms, one by one, day by day. The song came as a byproduct of that faithfulness. It was not manufactured. It was discovered, the way you discover something that was already there, waiting to be found.
He said the only way he could explain the moment the chorus finally came was that he had stepped into another place. For those who have sung “I Exalt Thee” in worship and felt that same displacement — that sudden, overwhelming sense of standing before something infinitely larger than yourself — his description rings true. The song doesn’t just describe that experience. It transports you into it.
Why This Song Still Moves Us
Nearly fifty years after Pete Sanchez wrote “I Exalt Thee” in the quiet of his apartment, the song continues to be sung in churches around the world, in languages its author could never have imagined, by people whose names he will never know. The reasons for its endurance are not mysterious.
First, it is rooted directly in Scripture. Every word of the verse is drawn from Psalm 97:9 — not paraphrased, not interpreted, but lifted almost verbatim from the ancient text. When you sing “I Exalt Thee,” you are singing the Bible. That gives the song an authority and a resonance that no amount of clever songwriting can manufacture.
Second, it does something theologically essential: it places God in His proper position before the worshipper enters anything else. Before petitions. Before problems. Before praise for what God has done. “I Exalt Thee” begins with who God is — exalted, supreme, high above all the earth — and invites the worshipper to orient their entire life around that reality. This is what theologians call doxology: starting with God, not with our needs.
Third — and perhaps most powerfully — the song carries the weight of its own origin story. Every time it is sung, it is, in some sense, the continuation of that night at the songwriters’ gathering when an entire room rose to its feet without being asked. The worship that began in Pete Sanchez’s apartment, spilled into that gathering, traveled around the world in ten languages, and continues to echo in churches everywhere — has never stopped. It simply keeps spreading, one voice at a time, one congregation at a time, finding its way into hearts that are ready to say, with everything they have:
I exalt Thee. I exalt Thee. I exalt Thee, O Lord.
Pete Sanchez Jr. founded Gabriel Music Incorporated in 1991, a music publishing company named after the biblical angel. He served for many years as Executive Pastor of Worship at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and as a professor of worship at universities in both the United States and Belgium. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree. “I Exalt Thee,” written in 1975 and copyrighted in 1976, remains one of the most widely sung worship songs in the history of the modern church.
