The True Story Behind ‘I Have Decided to Follow Jesus’ Hymn
The story behind ‘I Have Decided to Follow Jesus’ hymn will change the way you sing it forever. You have probably sung this song a hundred times in church and never once thought about where those lyrics actually came from. They were the last words of a Christian convert from the Garo tribe in northeastern India who was killed for refusing to deny Jesus.
The Faith Movement in the Garo Hills
Back in the mid-1800s there were missionaries heading into northeastern India, into this region called Assam. This was not an easy place to bring the gospel.
The tribal communities there had their own traditions going back centuries and they were not exactly rolling out the welcome mat for foreigners showing up talking about a God from the other side of the world.
But missionaries kept coming. They built schools and started literacy programs and just kept showing up day after day. Slowly some families started listening. Started believing.
Nokseng: A Man Who Refused to Deny Jesus
One of those families was a man named Nokseng from the Garo tribe and his wife and two children. They gave their lives to Christ and everything changed for them.
And not in the way you’d hope.
When the village leaders found out this family had converted to Christianity they were furious. This wasn’t just a personal choice in their eyes. It was betrayal. It was an insult to everything the village stood for.
So they dragged the whole family into the village square. The chief stood there and gave him one chance. Deny this Jesus. Go back to the old ways. Or your family dies.
Now I want you to put yourself there for a second. Your kids are right next to you. Your wife is standing there shaking. And a man with the power to kill all of you is telling you to just say the words and walk away.
Most of us would choose to save our family without a second thought right? But this man showed the kind of faith of those 3 men in the Bible who refused to bow before King Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue even when they were about to be thrown into a furnace.
Nokseng looked at the chief and said “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. No turning back.”
The chief gave the order and they killed his two children first. Right there in front of him. His own kids.
I can barely even write that without stopping.
They turned to him again. Last chance. Just deny him and this all stops. And this father who had just lost his children looked up and said “Though none go with me still I will follow. No turning back.”
Then they killed his wife.
He was alone now. He had lost every person on this earth that he loved. And when they asked him one final time he said “The world behind me the cross before me. No turning back.”
They executed him moments later.
The Whole Village Comes to Salvation
Here is where God does what only God can do.
The chief stood there looking at four dead bodies and something broke inside him. He had seen people beg for their lives before. He had seen people crumble and give in. But he had never seen anything like this.
A man who would not let go of Jesus even while watching his family be murdered one by one.
The chief said something like “What kind of power does this Jesus have that a man would die like this rather than deny him?”
And right there on the spot the chief gave his life to Christ. When the rest of the village saw their own leader surrender to this Jesus they followed. The whole village came to faith. Every single one of them.
The village that killed a Christian family became a village of Christians.
Nokseng’s Last Words Became a Hymn
So the story spread. Missionaries carried it across India and believers passed it along by word of mouth.
An Indian evangelist named Sadhu Sundar Singh who was himself a convert from Hinduism took those dying words and set them to a traditional Indian folk melody.
A Garo pastor named Simon K. Marak also helped shape the song into what we know today using it during his preaching when there weren’t many songs to choose from.
The tune got the name ASSAM after the region where it all happened. By the 1950s it had made its way to America and ended up in
Baptist hymnals and eventually in Billy Graham crusades where thousands of people heard it during altar calls and walked forward to give their lives to Jesus.
From a man’s dying breath in a remote Indian village to stadiums full of people across the world. That is how God works.
The Powerful Lyrics of “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus”
Verse 1:
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back.Verse 2:
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
Though none go with me, still I will follow,
No turning back, no turning back.Verse 3:
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
The world behind me, the cross before me,
No turning back, no turning back.Verse 4:
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
No turning back, no turning back.
Some hymnals also include this verse which is often placed third:
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus,
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus,
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back.
We sing these words so casually sometimes. Just another hymn on a Sunday morning. But now that you know the story behind this hymn and the price Nokseng paid for it.
“I have decided to follow Jesus” was not a worship chorus for this man. It was his death sentence and he said it anyway. “Though none go with me” was not hypothetical. He was literally alone. His children gone. His wife gone. Nobody left. And he still chose Jesus.
“The world behind me the cross before me.” He meant it in the most literal way a person can mean something. The world had taken everything from him and all he had left was the cross. And that was enough.
A Song That Still Asks Us the Question
We are never going to face what that man faced. Most of us won’t anyway. But we do face our own moments where following Jesus costs us something. Maybe it costs a relationship or a promotion or the approval of people we really want to impress. And in those small moments this hymn whispers back to us.
No turning back.
A family in India gave everything so the gospel could go forward. Their courage converted an entire village and their words became a song that has circled the globe for over a century.
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’” (Matthew 16:24)
WATCH: ‘I Have Decided to Follow Jesus’ Powerful Rendition by Grace L Brumley
