What does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to Him, to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Deuteronomy 10:12
Words: Anonymous, in The American Baptist Sabbath-School Hymn-Book, edited by Joseph A. Warne (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: David Clark, 1842), number 81.
Music: Sydney L. Harkey, in Augsburg Songs (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lutheran Publication Society, 1885), number 3 (🔊 pdf nwc).
Why have we lips, if not to sing
The praises of our heav’nly king?
Why have we hearts, if not to love,
Our Father and our friend above?
Refrain
What are we for? What are we for?
What are we for?
What are we for, but to serve the Lord,
With every deed, and thought and word?
Why were our curious bodies made,
And every part in order laid?
Why, but that each of us might stand
A living wonder from His hand?
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Why have we souls, if not to know
The God from whom our mercies flow?
Sure this can never be our lot,
Like senseless brutes, to know Him not!
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Why have we life? If not to gain
Immortal life, ’tis worse than vain;
This is the end for which ’twas giv’n—
We live on earth, to live in Heav’n.
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Why did the Savior leave the sky,
Hang on a cross, and bleed and die?
And why are kind persuasions sent
To call and win us to repent?
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Surely it is—that robed in white
And made well-pleasing in His sight,
Our souls may join the happy throng,
And sing the everlasting song.
Refrain