Devotionals

Victory March

by PamFord Davis 
01/10/25
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My husband Norm played trumpet in the Oak Grove High School marching band. He wonders why. He hated the long hours of practicing and shinning brass buttons on his uniform was tedious.

Join the ranks; we’re ‘Marching to Zion.’

Years ago, niece Jennifer surprised me with a gift of ‘Christ in Song’ a 1908 hymnal, published by F.E. Belden. Isaac Watts and Robert Lowry shared the honor of writing the lyrics of Marching to Zion.

'Come, we that love the Lord,
And let our joys be known;
Join in a song with sweet accord,
And thus surround the throne.

Refrain:
We’re marching to Zion,
Beautiful, beautiful Zion;
We’re marching upward to Zion,
The beautiful city of God.

The sorrows of the mind
Be banished from the place;
Religion never was designed
To make our pleasures less.

Let those refuse to sing,
Who never knew our God;
But children of the heav’nly King
May speak their joys abroad.

The men of grace have found
Glory begun below;
Celestial fruits on earthly ground
From faith and hope may grow.

The hill of Zion yields
A thousand sacred sweets
Before we reach the heav’nly fields,
Or walk the golden streets.

Then let our songs abound,
And every tear be dry;
We’re marching through Immanuel’s ground
To fairer worlds on high.'

Why the frown? This hymn is not a funeral dirge; it’s a victory march!

"We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel (Numbers 10:29b KJV)."