Cleanse Me
Cleanse Me
Search me, O God, and know my heart today;
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray.
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.
I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
Fulfill Thy Word, and make me pure within.
Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
Grant my desire to magnify Thy name.
Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine.
Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord—in me abide.
O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
Send a revival, start the work in me.
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.
IN 1936, at the age of twenty-four, evangelist J. Edwin Orr wrote this hymn during an Easter evangelistic campaign in New Zealand. During that campaign, revival fell on the people of New Zealand. Midnight services had to be added to accommodate the crowds; many were converted, and revival fires spread across the island nation.
As Orr was about to leave New Zealand, four Maori girls came and sang him their native song of farewell. Impressed by the tune and still stirred by the revival he had witnessed, Orr quickly scribbled the stanzas of this hymn on the back of an envelope as he waited in the post office of Ngaruawahia, New Zealand.
Orr, a brilliant man who would go on to earn doctorates from universities in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, studied revival movements for the next fifty years and chronicled them in numerous books.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
Psalm 139:23-24
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