The Importance of Hymns – Blessed Assurance

Scripture: Colossians 3:16 -  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Hymns are a lost art that many churches feel are outdated. These poetic and literary songs express genuine emotion and have spiritual quality. All hymns are reverently and devotionally conceived, designed to unify the members of the church through singing. These worship songs often stay with the hearer forever. What’s your favorite hymn? Most Christians have one. Different hymns focus on different things and sometimes the Believer sings the song without really processing the words. Nonetheless, when you really process the words of Blessed Assurance it becomes more than just a song.

The hymn, Blessed Assurance, by title alone should make you smile. Assurance is a positive declaration intended to give confidence. Now, if you add blessed, you have a holy declaration intended to give confidence. The song in part focuses on heaven. In heaven, there will be “perfect submission and perfect delight”. Then it focuses on our earthly existence; “we are watching and waiting, looking above”. And it also focuses on how we should feel as we submit ourselves to Christ, we are “filled with His goodness and lost in His love”. This song should remind us that we are being remade in Christ’s image and moving toward Christian perfection. Wow, those words should hit differently when you think about them as they relate to you personally. If you meditate on this particular hymn you will notice that it also appeals to the senses. It was written by Fanny Crosby a woman who was blind her entire life. In the song, she talks about a “foretaste of glory, visions of rapture, echoes of mercy and whispers of love”. Did you realize that this song speaks about how we should live on earth and what to expect in heaven? She said as believers we can be confident that Jesus is ours. And, because He is ours, we have been given a sample of glory. Crosby then writes about how Jesus being ours benefits us. She says we are heirs of salvation, a purchase of God, born of His Spirit and washed in His Blood. Sing with me:

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

Perfect submission, all is at rest
I in my savior am happy and blessed
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

Is this your story? Is this your song? Do you look forward to praising your Savior all the day long?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for Your undying love. Because of that love we can come boldly to the throne of Grace. Because of that love we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are Your children, full heirs to Your Kingdom. Because of that love we have a Blessed Assurance and can rest in knowing that we will spend eternity in heaven with Christ. Thank you for loving us so much that You gave Your only begotten son to save sinners like us. In the matchless name of Jesus, Amen.

(by Patricia Towns)