In this little excursion into Biblical concepts behind the hymn, “Blessed Assurance” (which is not the Bible, just a song written by someone I believe to have been a talented , Christ-focused lyricist), there’s a third verse:
Perfect submission, all is at rest.
In today’s world, submitting to someone else is not really something that most people want to do.
Even the Biblical model of submitting is not popular, especially when it gets mixed up with false idea of the person choosing to submit being somehow inferior as a result, or incorrect understandings of what submission means in the church. Ephesians 5:21-24 instructs believers to submit to each other, for instance, and expects that the church submits to Christ.
However, I heard (or read) a teacher once point out that Jesus (God the Son) submitted to God the Father in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:42). We know that Jesus was neither weak nor inferior, but He made a choice to let God the Father’s will be done. In fact, if we genuinely pray the Lord’s Prayer (see Matthew 6:9-13), we should agree, “Thy will be done”. To me, that is – as the song says here – “perfect” submission: we submit to a perfect God, and in doing so, we find the perfect and ideal example of submitting.
This stanza of the hymn also says, “all is at rest”. While rest might not seem like a big deal, consider this:
- Rest is important enough that God rested after 6 days of creation. (See Genesis 2:2-3)
- Rest is important enough that it is included in one of the ten commandments. (See Exodus 20:8-11)
- Rest is sometimes “rediscovered” by secular advisors and researchers, but God knew that we needed it from the start.
And, while the idea of everything being at rest seems pretty foreign in our busy, noisy world, let’s remember the words of David in Psalm 23:1-4. In that Psalm, David could rest because God was his shepherd.
I in my Savior am happy and bless’d,
(Some people might say that being blessed is the same thing as being happy, but since the line here had to rhyme, I think that we can offer Ms. Crosby some grace, even if happy and blessed are similar.)
Still, what would you say is the result of following Jesus? You might think of eternal life, joy, receiving the Holy Spirit, and being part of the family of God. Those things are blessings, and I think that they should make us happy.
Still, even if we know that intellectually, sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves just how blessed we are. Note that this isn’t talking about just having a positive outlook or “accentuating the positive”. We are happy and blessed in Jesus our Savior, who makes all the difference.
So, I encourage you to pause sometimes and count your blessings…but that’s another hymn!
watching and waiting, looking above,
If rest is one of my favorite subjects (even if I’m not always very good at it), then patience is one of my least favorite subjects. However, I can tell you that there are days that I’m driving to work, and I look up at the sky and consider that it would be great if Jesus opened the sky and returned right then!
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
From Galatians 5:22-23, we may recognize goodness as one of the descriptions of the fruit of the Spirit. However, this line of the song is talking about “his goodness” and it’s talking about Jesus, so this is God’s goodness, rather than ours.
Still, I think that the two are related. As Jesus described good fruit coming from good trees (and vice versa), God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is the original source of goodness. As a result, when followers of Jesus, having received the Holy Spirit, produce the fruit of goodness in their lives, they are just passing along what the Holy Spirit has in abundance.
And, this last phrase, “lost in his love” is a good reminder. Can you remember the last time you were lost in something? I don’t mean getting lost in the woods or lost while driving, but getting so caught up with something that you lost track of time and things going on around you. Some people get lost in a book, or a show, or just in the company of someone else. I think that this is more like what the author here means about being lost in Jesus’ love.
Like counting our blessings, there are times when I think that we should pause to just enjoy and spend time in God’s love.
Let’s close out our study of this hymn with Psalm 46:10.
He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”Psalms 46:10 NIV
https://psalm.bible/psalm-46-10
In conclusion, thank you for bearing with me as I tried something a little different with this series. As you sing songs – whether hymns or other Christian music – I hope that you will similarly pause and think about the words. Not every stanza of every song is necessarily inspired by God (even if it is sung on a Sunday morning), but I think that the really good ones will point you back to God and to His word.
From Sunday School lesson prepared for September 10, 2023
References:
- Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
- Scripture quotations taken from the NASB. Copyright by The Lockman Foundation.
Those Who Sin Differently 