Give Me Jesus

Jeremy Camp's “Give Me Jesus” is a brief and direct prayer built on a single request. Its refrain, “Give me Jesus,” is set against the offer, “You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.” The lines are short and repeated, so the song can be learned in one pass and sung by a whole room without any notes.

The verses place that request in three moments of a person's life. The first is the start of the day, “In the morning, when I rise.” The second is solitude, with the lines “When I am alone” repeated so the pause is felt. The third is the end of life, “When I come to die.” In each case the singer says the same thing: whatever the world has to offer can be taken, and Jesus is what is wanted. The song draws on an old spiritual that has been sung for generations, and Camp keeps the plain wording and slow pace. It suits a quiet time at the start of a service, a prayer meeting, or a moment of reflection on what matters most.

Counting everything loss for knowing Christ is Philippians 3:8. God as the strength of the heart is Psalm 73:25-26, and the worth of a soul against the world is Matthew 16:26.