Blessed Assurance

UMH # 369

Scripture Meditation

Hebrews 10:22  Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
 

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.

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.

words:  Fanny J. Crosby 1873

music:  Phoebe P. Knapp 1873

Blinded at 6 weeks of age, Fanny Crosby probably wrote more hymns than anyone in history, with over 8000 to her credit.  Regarding this hymn she said, "My friend, Mrs. Joseph F. Knapp, composed a melody and played it over to me two or three times on the piano. She then asked what it said. I replied, 'Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!'”  Shortly after her death, she was memorialized in a poem by Eliza Hewitt.

Away to the country of sunshine and song,
Our songbird has taken her flight,
And she who has sung in the darkness so long
Now sings in the beautiful light.

Phoebe Knapp’s parents were Methodist evangelists, Dr. Walter C. Palmer and Phoebe Worrall Palmer.  She married Joseph Knapp, president of the Metropolitan Life Insurange Company when she was 16.  They were members of the John Street Methodist Church in New York City, along with Fanny Crosby.  After her husband’s death, Phoebe was left with a large income, much of which she gave to charity. Phoebe had a large pipe organ in her apartment in the Savoy Hotel in New York City, and wrote over 500 hymn tunes.