Blessed Assurance 3/20/2018

Good Morning,

I woke up and went straight to the kitchen for the mug of Door County Cinnamon Hazelnut Coffee that was waiting for me. The coffee combined with two biscuits covered in honey set me up to make it through the day.

I was listening to the old hymn Blessed Assurance last night as I studied and prayed. I decided to look up the origin of the hymn and here is what I found.

Ira Sankey, good friend of hymn author Fanny Crosby, once related this story about the comfort “Blessed Assurance” provides:
“’During the recent war in the Transvaal,’ said a gentleman at my meeting in Exeter Hall, London, in 1900, ‘when the soldiers going to the front were passing another company whom they recognized, their greetings used to be, “Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four;” and the salute would invariably be answered with “Six further on, boys; six further on.” The significance of this was that, in ‘Sacred Songs and Solos,’ a number of copies of the small edition of which had been sent to the front, number 494 was ‘God be with you till we meet again’; and six further on than 494, or number 500, was ‘Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine’” (My Life and Sacred Songs, 69).
From the very day she wrote them, Crosby’s words have provided comfort for millions of Christians in the face of fear, persecution, sorrow, and doubt. In spite of all the trials that may come, we know that we serve a Savior who came to bring the Kingdom of God on earth, and as we serve Him, we participate in, and belong to, that Kingdom. We each play our own part in that “glorious foretaste” of what is still to come. We belong to Christ and his Kingdom – what an assurance this is.

1 John 3:19-24 New International Version (NIV)
¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

Blessed Assurance Lyrics

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood

Chorus:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels, descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Savior am happy and blest,
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

When I hear this old hymn I think of 1John 3:19-24. Just knowing that we have the Holy Spirit living within us, is enough to carry us through each and every day. The assurance of heaven as our eternal home is a blessing to be lived out each day.

Food for thought.

Marty