Blessed Assurance

Good Sunday Morning

Good Sunday morning…

Vale of Evesham Christian Centre, EveshamWorcestershire, U.K.

In the year 1873 composer Phoebe Palmer Knapp played a melody for famous hymn lyricist Fanny Crosby and asked, “What does the melody say to you?”

Crosby considered the question and replied, “Blessed assurance Jesus is mine!” She then recited the entire first stanza of the song that would become a standard for church hymns.

In her lifetime, Knapp was the composer of more than 500 gospel hymns and tunes. She was one of several composers who worked with Crosby. Crosby, who was blind since age six, would memorize her lyrics and repeat them to stenographers. She wrote more than 8,000 gospel hymn lyrics.

“As a Methodist, Crosby captured the poetic essence of the Wesleyan understanding of Christian perfection in the phrase ‘O what a foretaste of glory divine!’” Dr. C. Micheal Hawn wrote in 2014. Hawn, at the time was professor of church music at Perkins School of Theology.

“The entire hymn is focused on heaven, a place where ‘perfect submission’ and ‘perfect delight’ will take place,” Hawn said. “The early existence is one of ‘watching and waiting, looking above.’ As we submit ourselves to Christ and are ‘filled with his goodness’ and ‘lost in his love,’ we are remade in Christ’s image and are moving toward Christian perfection.”

Blessed Assurance, and old hymns of the church are not as well known by young Christians today, as they have been replaced with “contemporary” worship music. Also, some young people never make it to church services these days because their parents or grandparents don’t take them.

But Crosby’s lyrics are full of Biblical truths that sing of the assurance we have with Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

In John 10:28-31NIV, Jesus says this: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

Hebrews 20:22 NIV says “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”

In the Book of Romans, Chapter 8:29-32 NIV Paul is convinced that we have the assurance of God’s promises, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Assurance of salvation. 1 John 5:11-12.

• Assurance of answered prayer. John 16:24.

• Assurance of victory. 1 Corinthians 10:13.

• Assurance of forgiveness. 1 John 1:9.

• Assurance of guidance. Proverbs 3:5

“This is my story, this is my song,

praising my Savior all the day long.”

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