My Jesus, I Love Thee

Avalon performs William Featherston's 1864 hymn — reportedly written when he was only sixteen — and its central logic runs entirely on sequence: 'I love Thee because Thou hast first loved me.' The love being offered isn't presented as spontaneous or self-generated; it's explicitly a response, echoing 1 John 4:19's claim that 'we love Him, because He first loved us' almost word for word.

'Purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree' reaches toward Galatians 3:13's language of Christ becoming 'a curse for us' on the tree, and 'I love Thee for wearing the thorns on Thy brow' keeps the hymn's affection tied to specific, physical cost rather than staying at the level of abstract gratitude. The final verse shifts from present devotion to a future scene — 'in mansions of glory and endless delight I'll ever adore Thee' — extending a teenager's declaration of love into a promise meant to outlast his own lifetime, which it in fact has.