sw

Blessed Assurance

lyrics by fanny j. crosby, music by phoebe p. knapp

Blessed Assurance Lyrics

 

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

 

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.

 

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, 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.

 

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.

 

 

Blessed Assurance Guitar Chords

 

D                  G        D                                 

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

             A        E7    A           

O what a foretaste of glory divine!

D                  G           D               

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

D           G  Em   D      A7     D   

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

                  G          D                             

This is my story, this is my song,

            G  D   A       E   A        

Praising my Savior all the day long;

A7         D      G    D  G  D                                  

This is my story, this is my song,

D           G  Em  D       A7  D             

Praising my Savior all the day long;

 

Scripture References

  • Hebrews 10:22 - Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

The Story

 

One of my favorite quotes comes from Helen Keller, the blind, deaf, and mute author, activist for the disabled, and lecturer. The story goes that once someone asked her, "Isn't it terrible to be blind?" to wihch she responded, "Better to be blind and see with your heart than to have two good eyes and see nothing."

 

One woman who "saw" was a woman who was born about 50 years before her named Fanny Crosby. You probably recognize her name from your hymnal. She was the lyricist responsible for songs like All the Way My Savior Leads Me, Close to Thee, He Hideth My Soul, Draw Me Nearer, Jesus Is Calling, Near the Cross, Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior, Safe in the Arms of Jesus, Saved by Grace, To God Be the Glory, and over 8,000 others.

 

When she was only six weeks old, a doctor applied medicine to her eyes that destroyed her sight forever. While this may have destroyed other lives, Crosby maintained a cheerful optimism, while also developing a skill for poetry even at an early age. At age 8 she wrote:

 

O what a happy soul and I,

Although I cannot see,

I am resolved that in this world

Contented I will be.

How many blessings I enjoy,

The other people don't;

To weep and sigh because I'm blind,

I cannot, and I won't.

 

At age 15, she entered the Institution for the Blind in New York where she continued to be a remarkable writer. It wasn't until age 41 when she met the famous composer William Bradbury that she started writing hymns. There is where she finally knew she'd found her calling in life, generating about three hymns a week for the rest of her life. She wrote that she was the "happiest creature in all the land."

 

As contemporaries often do to great artists, her work wasn't necessarily respected at the time. An English hymnologist John Julian once remarked that her hymns were "with very few exceptions, very weak and poor". All I can say to Mr. Julian is, 200 years later more people remember Fanny Crosby than remember John Julian. :)

 

Blessed Assurance was a hymn where the tune preceded the lyrics. While visiting with her dear friend Phoebe Knapp, a musician who was a fellow resident of New York City and fellow member of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Knapp played the melody two or three times for Crosby and asked what she felt the tune said. Crosby answered in an instant: "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!"

 

Fanny Crosby passed on in 1915. At her request, a small gravestone was put there with the words "Aunt Fanny: she hath done what she could; Fanny J. Crosby". Forty years later, depsite her instructions, her friends put up a large memorial stone that contained the first stanze of Blessed Assurance.

 

 

YouTube Videos

 

 

Your Comments