Lyrics Review - I Surrender All

Alternative Titles
Some know this as "All to Jesus I Surrender"

Lyrics
All to Jesus I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all,
I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
Oh, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!

Author
Lyrics by Judson W. Van DeVenter

Music by Winfield S. Weeden

Chords

Background

For some time, I had strug­gled be­tween de­vel­op­ing my tal­ents in the field of art and go­ing into full-time evan­gel­is­tic work. At last the pi­vot­al hour of my life came, and I sur­ren­dered all. A new day was ushered in­to my life. I became an evang­el­ist and dis­cov­ered down deep in my soul a tal­ent hi­ther­to un­known to me. God had hid­den a song in my heart, and touch­ing a ten­der chord, He caused me to sing. - Van DeVenter 

Lyrics Review
5/5 Scriptural
5/5 Christ-centered
4/5 Chanty
Encouraging to both new and repenting Christians
Edifying: faith, blessing, Lordship, distinct roles in the Trinity, meaning of surrender, joy of salvation, Salvation is God's alone, certainty of God's answer (implicit)

At first I really didn't like the melody of this song. I mean, it sounds a little too old even for me who grew up in hymns (Baptist by denomination, but I don't really identify myself with any). Completely scriptural; most of it are simply repetitions. What I do love about this is that it details what surrender exactly is:

Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;..

Surrender is the forsaking of the self (humility) and the world. It does not, however, end with forsaking but says "Let Thy blessing fall on me." and this attained in the last stanza, the singer shouts regarding the all-satisfying blessings of God:

Oh, the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!

The joy of salvation is not the end as many catch the hook-line-sinker of contemporary evangelists, but ascribing glory to God. In connecting the pleading 4th verse to the praising 5th, he implicitly says that God will surely answer anyone who asks. In addition, it acknowledges that salvation is of God alone. Notice that the singer says "I surrender" but also pleads  "Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;" He acknowledges that salvation is God and God's alone.

Listen
Andraé Crouch


Brian Littrell with some modification, inserting the following lyrics between the second and the third verses:

Lord, I give to You
All I ever have
And everything I was
And everything I am

Now I lay it down
I lay it at your feet
To Your grace, To Your power
I surrender all

and completely removing the last verse. This modification makes it slightly more chanty but still as encouraging, or perhaps even more.


Israel Houghton here does not recite the full lyrics but simply repeats the first, making it specially chanty (5/5)