Here I Am To Worship

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” — Philippians 2:9-11

Christian artist Tim Hughes tells the story behind “Here I Am to Worship”: “I wrote this song when I was studying at university in Sheffield. I’d been reading about the life of Jesus, and about us imitating Christ’s humility and the fact that Jesus gave up everything, walked upon the earth and was obedient even to death on a cross, in Philippians 2. So I began, as often we do, to worship out of response to that.

I began to sing out these words, ‘Light of the world, you stepped down into darkness, opened my eyes, let me see’, and also I had that tag, ‘I’ll never know how much it cost, to see my sin upon the cross’. But I could never ever finish the chorus, and I got more and more frustrated. When I get to that place, often what I do is park the song and move on.

About six months later I went to the movies to watch a film called The Green Mile, a Stephen King story about substitution; someone taking on a punishment that wasn’t rightfully his to take. The themes of the cross and sacrifice were so powerful, and I began to sing this song again. I thought, ‘I must finish that’, but again I couldn’t get the chorus.

I began to listen through to old – back then it was cassettes – tapes of melodic ideas I’d had, and I found an old-school melodic idea which I thought, ‘Actually, that could fit really nicely’, and then quickly wrote those lyrics. The verses speak about what Jesus has done and the chorus needed to be a simple, ‘Well I’m going to respond by worshipping you, bowing down, saying that you’re my God.’ So that’s how the song came together.

Then I played it once in a ministry time and Mike Pilavachi, who heads up Soul Survivor, came up to me and said, ‘What is that song? You have to sing that song every week for the next year’, which I almost ended up doing. I was really surprised when it took off.”

Our hearts were meant to worship our all-loving, omnipotent God. Today in prayer, worship Jesus.

“Here I am to worship

Here I am to bow down

Here I am to say that you're my God

You're altogether lovely

Altogether worthy

Altogether wonderful to me” – Tim Hughes

God’s Word: “saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’” – Revelation 5:12