{"id":92,"date":"2014-05-21T14:21:34","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T18:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=92"},"modified":"2014-05-22T19:37:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T23:37:19","slug":"worship-wednesday-fanny-crosbys-blessed-assurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/?p=92","title":{"rendered":"Worship Wednesday – Fanny Crosby’s Blessed Assurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2014<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…\u00a0<\/sup><\/span>Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.<\/span> – Hebrews 10:22a, 23<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) was an American songwriter. She wrote the lyrics to more than 8000 hymns. Many in church today do not sing the hymns of old, but even my millennial children know all the words to Crosby’s Blessed Assurance.<\/p>\n

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
\nO what a foretaste of glory divine!
\nHeir of salvation, purchase of God,
\nBorn of His Spirit, washed in His blood.<\/p>\n

Refrain:
\nThis is my story, this is my song,
\nPraising my Saviour all the day long;
\nThis is my story, this is my song,
\nPraising my Saviour all the day long.<\/p>\n

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
\nVisions of rapture now burst on my sight;
\nAngels descending, bring from above
\nEchoes of mercy, whispers of love.<\/p>\n

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
\nI in my Saviour am happy and blest;
\nWatching and waiting, looking above,
\nFilled with His goodness, lost in His love.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0history of the hymn<\/a>\u00a0is a quick glimpse into Fanny Crosby’s life. She was visiting in the home of a\u00a0composer friend who had just written a melody. The friend, Phoebe P. (Mrs. Joseph K.)\u00a0Knapp, asked her what came to mind upon hearing the melody, and Fanny responded immediately, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.” She then completed the rest of the lyrics shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

Fanny wrote both secular and sacred music and taught school. She was also profoundly concerned for the urban poor and lived most of her life in and around the poorest neighborhoods of New York City. She was a vocal protestor against slavery and testified before the U.S. Senate in support of education for the blind.<\/p>\n

Fanny Crosby had been blind all her life.\u00a0 Her physical eyes were dark but her spiritual vision was crystal clear.\u00a0 She commented often how if she’d been sighted she might have missed the depth of awareness of God and His\u00a0nearness to her. [Autobiography of Fanny Crosby<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Her songs communicate strong emotion and deep devotion. I am thankful to have grown up attending summer revival meetings and church camps where\u00a0these hymns\u00a0were regularly a part of the program.\u00a0 Some of my favorites are: I Am Thine, O Lord; Jesus is Calling; Praise Him, Praise Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer; Redeemed how I Love to Proclaim it; and To God Be the Glory. Just remembering the titles of these great old hymns\u00a0takes me back – to warm summer nights; women fanning themselves with\u00a0paper fans advertising\u00a0the local funeral home;\u00a0preachers\u00a0making passionate appeals\u00a0as if a matter of life and death; singing “one more verse” of one of those Crosby hymns.<\/p>\n

\"benevolence-ga-randolph-county-baptist-church-interior-funeral-home-fans-folklife-picture-image-photo-brian-brown-vanishing-south-georgia-usa-20121\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Or at church camp, by a lake, around a huge crackling fire popping and sending sparks up to the dark night sky; all of us circled around, singing and praying…for our sinful teenaged selves or for the friend on either side of us. Those were experiences deeply imprinted in my life’s story – those experiences, Crosby’s hymns, and the God of those hymns.<\/p>\n

Some of my contemporaries write about those experiences as emotional ploys to bring some weak soul to a public profession of faith. All I know is that God grabbed hold of me in a very real way through the music of those old hymnists like Fanny Crosby.<\/p>\n

She was one who knew God – who saw Him with eyes that couldn’t see anything else. And\u00a0at some point, early\u00a0in her life, she became one who only had eyes for Him…and that intimacy is reflected in her hymns. God Himself is marvelously magnified in her hymns. Blessed assurance.<\/p>\n

Blessed Assurance by Third Day (with Lyrics)<\/a><\/p>\n

Blessed Assurance by Third Day (Live)<\/a><\/p>\n

Blessed Assurance by The Angelic Choir<\/a><\/p>\n

In Christ Alone<\/a>\u00a0– a contemporary hymn by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty<\/p>\n

Fan Photo by Brian Brown<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…\u00a0Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. – Hebrews 10:22a, 23 Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) was an American songwriter. She wrote the lyrics to more than 8000 hymns. Many in church today do not … Continue reading Worship Wednesday – Fanny Crosby’s Blessed Assurance<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[69,81,68,77,78,74,76,80,70,79,71,73,72,75],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wednesday-worship","tag-blessed-assurance","tag-church-camp","tag-fanny-crosby","tag-hymnist","tag-hymnology","tag-in-christ-alone","tag-keith-getty","tag-meetings","tag-praising","tag-revival","tag-savior","tag-song","tag-story","tag-stuart-townend"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pauPAB-1u","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/debmillswriter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}