Blessed Assurance

1 Peter 1:8 NIV

8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

Ira Sankey, good friend of hymn author Fanny Crosby, once related this story about the comfort “Blessed Assurance” provides: “’During the recent war in the Transvaal,’ said a gentleman at my meeting in Exeter Hall, London, in 1900, ‘when the soldiers going to the front were passing another company whom they recognized, their greetings used to be, “Four-nine-four, boys; four-nine-four;” and the salute would invariably be answered with “Six further on, boys; six further on.” The significance of this was that, in ‘Sacred Songs and Solos,’ a number of copies of the small edition of which had been sent to the front, number 494 was ‘God be with you till we meet again’; and six further on than 494, or number 500, was ‘Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine’” (My Life and Sacred Songs, 69).

From the very day she wrote them, Crosby’s words have provided comfort for millions of Christians in the face of fear, persecution, sorrow, and doubt. In spite of all the trials that may come, we know that we serve a Savior who came to bring the Kingdom of God on earth, and as we serve Him, we participate in, and belong to, that Kingdom. We each play our own part in that “glorious foretaste” of what is still to come. We belong to Christ and his Kingdom – what an assurance this is!