I was quite touched by verse 3. The Father's desire is to be expressed in many sons. The church today is a blessing for us to participate and see millions who have the life of God.

This song reminds me of when I go hiking and see a vast view, or when I look up at the stars at night and see the beauty of creation, and get the sense of awe and wonder at how great God is. How marvellous, how great Thou art! God has created such a vast and diverse universe, yet He has a special care for man!

Rm 1:20 For the invisible things of Him, both His eternal power and divine characteristics, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being perceived by the things made, so that they would be without excuse;

Ps 8:1 O Jehovah our Lord, / How excellent is Your name / In all the earth, / You who have set Your glory over the heavens!

Ps 8:4 What is mortal man, that You remember him, / And the son of man, that You visit him?

I hope all my days on this earth will be spent "singing praise to Thee"! For what He has done, is doing and will do in me and for His eternal, unchanging purpose!

Oh Father, how marvelous You are! How great You are!!!

Father, gain my whole being to sing praises to You!!

I expect the coming age of fulness

I hope to share the new Jerusalem.

With all the heavens and the earth in newness

Amen, and all Thou art expressed in all of them.

Hallelujah, hallelujah.

Then all my being sings in praise to Thee,

How marvellous! How great Thou art!

And this I’ll sing through all eternity,

How marvellous! How great Thou art!

The beauty and worth of a hymn does not lie in how it stirs your soul but in the reality and truth conveyed in the lyrics. Additionally we must touch the spirit of the writer and touch the hymn with our spirit for the riches in the hymn to become our enjoyment, appreciation and experience.

I appreciate this hymn because it gives us a contrast between God's old creation and His new creation. Most people (including unbelievers) are awed by God's old creation, and rightly so—just looking at the heavens, the earth, the birds, the mountains, the trees, the order in the universe, even looking at our physical bodies—all planned with wondrous skill, foreknowledge, wisdom by our God-indeed it is too great for us to comprehend. This alone moves us to worship Him....

But listen.... even greater than these is God's NEW CREATION... the church His masterpiece—His dwelling place which consummates in the New Jerusalem.... My spirit within is elated.... God's central work is related to His New Creation... We should worship the Father more for His New Creation than His old creation.....

Christ died on the cross to produce God's New Creation.... He didn't need to die to produce the old creation.... the new Creation is too too precious that He gave His life to bring it forth....

The New Creation is God making His home in millions of His chosen people, and building them up to be His holy habitation. The New Creation is God dwelling in man. The New Creation is the church as the dwelling place of God in spirit (Ephesians 2:20-22).

If someone were to make a video of a monkey or dog driving a car, I believe this will go 'viral' and many people will hail it as something wonderful...

It is a great thing in this universe that God will come into man to make His home in our heart-—this deserves our highest joy, praise and worship—we should even be beside ourselves at knowing and experiencing this...

Jesus said in His Father's house are many abodes (John 14:1, 2). This was not referring to heavenly mansion but to His going through death and resurrection to produce the church. In John 14:23, He says He and the Father will make their dwelling/abode in the one who loves Him... and in 1 Tim. 3:15 we see that the church is the house of the living God... The Apostle Paul prayed that Christ will make His home in our hearts (Ephesians 3:17).. this is God's New Creation....

How great, marvelous and mysterious that the Immortal One should choose to dwell in immortal beings....

When we see this, spontaneously there will be a cry deep within us... Lord make Your home in my heart.... build me up with all the saints to be your enlarged dwelling place....

May the Lord open our eyes to see that His heart is set on the New Creation-that is God living in millions of His sons, who have been built up as the church to be His full expression in this universe.

May we give ourselves to Him to live more and more in and through us....

We worship you Father for your multifarious wisdom and greatness in producing the New Creation.

See Betty's 9/24/2012 posting of the lyrics to the hymn which is the base for the hymnal.net hymn.

The original hymn, "How Great Thou Art" is 1 of the hymnal's finest expressions for impressing us with God's greatness and majesty both in creation and redemption. If we are to truly worship God and trust Him with our lives, we must begin with a recognition of who He is and the knowledge of His limitless power.

Although it was written in the late 1800's, "How Great Thou Art" has only become familiar to congregations since the close of World War II. This inspiring song of praise was voted the United Kingdom's favorite hymn by BBC's Songs of Praise and was ranked second (after "Amazing Grace") on a list of the favorite hymns of all time in a survey by 'Christianity Today' magazine in 2001.

The hymn was 1st introduced to American audiences at the Stony Brook Bible Conference in Long Island, NY, in the early 1950's. However, the hymn did not become a universal favorite until Cliff Barrows and "Bev" Shea of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team used it during the London Crusade in the mid-1950's and again in the New York Crusade in 1957.

A Swedish pastor, the Rev. Carl Boberg, was inspired to write this text after a visit to a beautiful country estate on the Southeast coast of Sweden in 1886. He recalled:

"I was suddenly caught in a mid-day thunderstorm with awe-inspiring moments of flashing violence which were followed by a clear brilliant sun. Soon afterwards I heard the calm, sweet songs of the birds in nearby trees. I was so overwhelmed by this display of nature that I fell to my knees in humble adoration to the mighty God of creation. In my exaltation I penned a 9-stanza poem with each stanza beginning with the Swedish words for 'O Great God'."

Several years later Pastor Boberg was attending a meeting in the Province of Varmland, Sweden, and was greatly surprised to hear this congregation using an old Swedish folk melody for his words.

After Pastor Boberg had written his poem, it was translated into the German language. Then the first literal English translation was made by the Rev. E. Gustav Johnson, a teacher from North Park College in Chicago, IL. This literal translation of Boberg's original poem was titled "O Mighty God, When I Behold the Wonder." These words are still found in some hymnals.

About the same time another individual discovered the German version and translated it into the Russian language. It soon became especially popular with a group of Ukrainian believers.

British Methodist missionary Stuart Wesley Hine was dedicated to Jesus Christ in the Salvation Army by his parents. Hine was influenced greatly by the teachings of British Baptist evangelist Charles Spurgeon.

Hine first heard the Russian translation of the German version of the song while on an evangelistic mission to the Carpathian Mountains in Ukraine, near the Polish border, in 1931. Upon hearing it, Hine was inspired to create his English paraphrase known as “How Great Thou Art". Hine also started re-writing some of the verses --- and writing new verses (all in Russian) --- as events inspired him.

One of the verses Hine added was the current 3rd verse in Betty's 9/2012 post. Michael Ireland explains the origin of this verse written by Hine:

It was typical of the Hines to ask if there were any Christians in the villages they visited. In one case, they found out that the only Christians that their host knew about were a man named Dmitri and his wife Lyudmila. Dmitri's wife knew how to read -- evidently a fairly rare thing at that time and in that place. She taught herself how to read because a Russian soldier had left a Bible behind several years earlier, and she started slowly learning by reading that Bible. When the Hines arrived in the village and approached Dmitri's house, they heard a strange and wonderful sound: Dmitri's wife was reading from the gospel of John about the crucifixion of Christ to a houseful of guests, and those visitors were in the very act of repenting. In Ukraine (as I know first hand!), this act of repenting is done very much out loud. So the Hines heard people calling out to God, saying how unbelievable it was that Christ would die for their own sins, and praising Him for His love and mercy. They just couldn't barge in and disrupt this obvious work of the Holy Spirit, so they stayed outside and listened. Stuart wrote down the phrases he heard the repenters use, and (even though this was all in Russian), it became the third verse that we know today: "And when I think that God, His Son not sparing, Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in."

The fourth verse was another innovation of Stuart Hine, which was added after the Second World War. His concern for the exiled Polish community in Britain, who were anxious to return home, provided part of the inspiration for Hine's final verse. Hine and David Griffiths visited a camp in Sussex, England, in 1948 where displaced Russians were being held, but where only two were professing Christians. The testimony of one of these refugees and his anticipation of the second coming of Christ inspired Hine to write the fourth stanza of his English version of the hymn. According to Ireland:

One man to whom they were ministering told them an amazing story: he had been separated from his wife at the very end of the war, and had not seen her since. At the time they were separated, his wife was a Christian, but he was not, but he had since been converted. His deep desire was to find his wife so they could at last share their faith together. But he told the Hines that he did not think he would ever see his wife on earth again. Instead he was longing for the day when they would meet in heaven, and could share in the Life Eternal there. These words again inspired Hine, and they became the basis for his fourth and final verse to 'How Great Thou Art': "When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation to take me home, what joy shall fill my heart. Then we shall bow in humble adoration and there proclaim, My God How Great Thou Art!"

This thrilling final stanza reminds us that our great God will one day return to earth for His bride - believers from every age and culture - that they might sing of His greatness throughout all eternity. - '52 Hymn Stories Dramatized' by Kenneth W. Osbeck & Wikipedia

As I expect the coming age of fulness

And hope to share the new Jerusalem,

With all the heavens and the earth in newness

And all Thou art expressed in all of them

Then all my being sings in praise to thee

How marvelous! How great Thou art!

How marvellous! How great Thou art!

Amen.