****NOW I BELONG TO JESUS

NORMAN CLAYTON was born in 1903 and died in 1992.

During his childhood, he learned to play the pump organ and the trumpet which he played in churches for over 50 years.  In his early adult years, he worked at various occupations including dairy farming, office help, construction work and, during the depression, he worked in a bakery.

It was in the early 1940s that Jack Wyrtzen recruited Norman to be the organist for his ‘Word of Life’ rallies.  Norman proved to be very helpful to Jack in several different ministry functions for about 15 years. 

When Word of Life publishing merged with the Rodeheaver business he joined them as a writer and editor.  During those years he published about 30 songbooks containing several hundred of his own hymns. 

One observation, from those who knew him well, was that Norman made a lifelong practice of memorizing Scripture.  It was said of him, that whenever he began to write a new hymn, he studied the Bible to ensure that each phrase, in his songs, was biblical and doctrinally correct. 

In his song, NOW I BELONG TO JESUS, Clayton is clear about our sin nature.  In the second and third verses he speaks of sin’s degradation, it’s sorrow and shame, and the enslavement and control it has over each of us.  But the text also proclaims the Good News, “He gave His life to ransom my soul, now I belong to Him.”

Even though there is very little information available about Norman Clayton, there is a moving anecdotal story about this hymn.  It was told by Lindsay Terry, in his book, ‘Stories Behind Popular Songs and Hymns.’

A missionary, Roy Gustafson, was once invited to preach at a prison in Jamaica.  He sang and preached the gospel to a thousand men that day.  After the service, he met with a small group of condemned prisoners who were to be hanged from the gallows in a couple days.

Roy started with his own testimony and then sang Norman Clayton’s song, NOW I BELONG TO JESUS. One of the men, a wicked, condemned killer, said, “I’m going to die on Tuesday morning, sir.  Can I be saved?”

Roy opened his Bible and read and explained several passages from the Word of God including Romans 3. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  …being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ  whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

The prisoner bowed his face to the dirt floor sobbing and called on the Lord to save him. Then, smiling through his tears, he asked Roy to sing the song again.  And with a little help, he began to sing along.  

When the guard returned to let the evangelist out of the prison, he looked back and saw the man still singing, “Now I belong to Jesus, Jesus belongs to me, Not for the years of time alone, But for eternity.”