24 Spotify Picks for Give Me Jesus

The average time spent listening weekly is 16 hours and 14 minutes, a significant increase from 2020’s 15 hours and 12 minutes, according to Trinity Audio.

That’s a lot of hours! But considering the kind of technology we have in our hands today, listening is an activity we pair up with most of the routines we do during the day — exercise, driving or walking to work, cleaning the house, getting ready for the day, while working, etc. — 16 hours could just be the bare minimum for a lot of people.

I personally love to listen to my favorite music as well as discovering new ones. In fact, I set about an hour a week just listening to new music. I would admit tho, there’s a lot of junk music out there and it can be hard to pick the good ones from the bad.

Over the years, I have developed a certain standard for music. As a Christian woman, I have to set certain parameters to the kind of music I listen to. I have to judge the musical aspects — the use of instruments, the use of rhythmic elements, the vocal performance, the creative and stylistic use of harmony, melody and form, and just the overall musical quality, etc. I also have to make sure the words agree with the values I hold. There are times when a few seconds into listening and I can already tell I’m better off not listening to this particular music.

But there are good ones I find too, and I would like to share it with you!

Looking for something new to add to your playlist?

Here are 24 of our Spotify picks on Give Me Jesus, our feature hymn of the month, to consider adding to your music audio library.

24 Recommended Versions of ‘Give Me Jesus’ You Can Play On Spotify

Group Vocal

1. Artist: Acapella, Heaven on Earth

2. Artist: BYU Singers, Songs of the Soul

3. Artist: Barbara Hendricks and the Moses Hogan Singers, Give Me Jesus, Spirituals

4. Artist: Soul Satisfied, Music, Hymns, Vol. 1

Female Vocal Solo

5. Artist: Sounds Like Reign, Her Heart Sings

6. Artist: Maddy Reed, In the Morning

7. Artist: Ashaala Shanae, Matters of the Heart

8. Artist: Lynda Randle, Ageless Hymns, Songs of Hope

9. Artist: Cymry Llundain, Beautiful the Song

10. Artist: Jean Prescott, Whisperings of Jesus

History of Give Me Jesus

The original title commonly used for this hymn are actually the first few words of the initial stanza — ‘In the morning when I rise.’ According to Odum and Johnson (1925), many slave songs contained the metaphor of ‘morning’ and that as a rule, ‘morning signified to the Negro the time for going to heaven and for the resurrection.’ Slave Songs of the United States (New York, 1867) a post-Civil war collection presents two evidences that proves the morning theme to be correct — 2 songs that mention morning that refers to the resurrection morning.

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Male Vocal Solo

11. Artist: Fernando Ortega, Home

12. Artist: Mark Schultz, Hymns

13. Artist: Collin Raye, Through It All His Love Remains

14. Artist: Jordan Putt, Honest to God

15. Artist: Christopher Duffley, Eyes of My Heart

16. Artist: Oral Moses, Come Down Angels and Trouble the Water

17. Artist: Gilead Music Ministries, Give Me Jesus

A Singer’s Perspective

The first time I heard Give Me Jesus was in 2008. It was my second US concert tour with the AUP Ambassadors and we were in Michigan. The song was being rehearsed by the Andrews University Choir, the first few lines a baritone solo. I fell in love with the song right away, maybe it was the simple but moving melody, or the warmth of the soloist and choir’s execution, or the depth of its message articulating the deepest longing of my soul, but I had this connection with this song that I rarely get from others.

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