Blessed assurance – Day 1

I grew up in a relatively small church in Benoni. We only had one pianist and when she couldn’t be at the morning service, for whatever reason, we had to sing acapella. Whenever this happened, we sang the hymn Blessed Assurance. I don’t know why, I suppose it was because the tune is easy enough for those of us in the congregation who aren’t musically gifted, to bumble along without accompaniment! As a result, it was one of the first hymns I remember learning by heart, although it was never one of my favourites. As a child and even as a teenager, I don’t think I really understood it.

Blessed Assurance was written by Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), who is recognised as one of the world’s most prolific and talented hymn composers. Despite becoming blind shortly after her birth, Fanny wrote over 8 000 hymns.

One day, Fanny was visiting her friend Phoebe Knapp. The Knapps were having a large pipe organ installed, but it was incomplete, so Phoebe was playing a new melody she had just composed on the piano. When Phoebe asked her friend, “What do you think the tune says?” Fanny replied, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!”

The Scriptures teach that we can know with absolute certainty that we have been redeemed by Christ’s death. This confidence is not based on inner feelings or outward signs. Rather, this “blessed assurance” is founded upon the promises of a faithful God and his inspired word. It depends not on the amount of our faith, but on the object of our faith – Christ himself!

Blessed Assurance provides a glimpse of the focused joy Fanny experienced in God. Though blind, she describes her assurance in Jesus as providing “visions of rapture”. Truly, this was the story of her life – let it be the story of ours.