Come Thou Fount (I Will Sing)

Older hymn language carries the verses in Chris Tomlin’s version, while a newer refrain supplies the response. The classic phrases stay intact, “Come Thou fount of every blessing” and “Tune my heart to sing Thy grace,” and the added chorus answers in plain modern speech: “How Your kindness yet pursues me, how Your mercy never fails me… I will sing.”

The second verse holds the story. “Here I raise my Ebenezer” marks help already received (“Hither by Thy help I come”), and Jesus is the one who sought “a stranger wandering from the fold of God” and rescued him at the cost of “His precious blood.” The third verse turns self-aware: “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,” followed by a request that goodness would work like a fetter binding a wandering heart.

It ends on an offering, “Here’s my heart Lord, take and seal it.” The raised stone echoes 1 Samuel 7:12, the pursuing kindness Psalm 23:6, the seeking Savior Luke 19:10, and the mercy that never fails Lamentations 3:22-23.