Lyrics
Living for Jesus a life that is true,
Striving to please Him in all that I do,
Yielding allegiance, glad-hearted and free,
This is the pathway of blessing for me.
O Jesus, Lord and Savior,
I give myself to Thee;
For Thou, in Thine atonement,
Didst give Thyself for me.
I own no other master;
My heart shall be Thy throne.
My life I give, henceforth to live,
O Christ, for Thee alone.
Living for Jesus, who died in my place,
Bearing on Calvary my sin and disgrace —
Such love constrains me to answer His call,
Follow His leading, and give Him my all.
Living for Jesus wherever I am,
Doing each duty in His holy name,
Willing to suffer affliction or loss,
Deeming each trial a part of my cross!
Living for Jesus through earth's little while,
My dearest treasure, the light of His smile,
Seeking the lost ones He died to redeem,
Bringing the weary to find rest in Him!
Public domain hymn text and tune (words 1917, tune 1915). Words by Thomas O. Chisholm; music by C. Harold Lowden.
The Story Behind the Hymn
The tune to "Living for Jesus" came first, and by two years. In 1915, composer C. Harold Lowden wrote a light, upbeat melody for children's services, calling it "The Sunshine Song." Two years later, going back through old files, he played the tune over again and felt the rhythm suggested different words entirely — the phrase "Living for Jesus" — so he sent the melody to Thomas O. Chisholm and asked him to write a text for it.
Chisholm initially protested; he had never written words to fit an existing tune before, always working the other way around. Lowden insisted anyway, telling him he believed God had specifically led him to ask Chisholm for this one. There was a further complication: Chisholm could not read music. To work out the words, he had his daughter hum Lowden's melody to him over and over until the phrasing and rhythm of the tune shaped the lines he eventually wrote down.
The finished hymn appeared as a standalone song sheet in the spring of 1917 and was quickly taken up at youth conferences that summer — more than a million copies of that sheet-music edition reportedly sold before the year was out. By fall it had been folded into a hymnal collection Lowden compiled with Rufus W. Miller titled Uplifting Songs.
Chisholm, better remembered today for "Great Is Thy Faithfulness," considered his own hymn writing a sideline to an ordinary working life — he supported himself for years as an insurance agent. "Living for Jesus," born from a repurposed children's tune and a daughter's patient humming, remains one of the plainest and most direct hymns of personal consecration in the American gospel song tradition.
