Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary

spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and

Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

All right, guys, welcome to a new week of the Daily Blade. So on my last batch, I took you fellows

on a journey to the wonderful world of Christian metal by introducing you guys to a song

by the band Beloved, and I spent that week showing you guys that we were born for battle.

And let's just say I'm feeling musical again, so buckle up because out of all the genres of Christian worship music out there, metal's definitely my favorite, but my second favorite has got to be hymns. So I didn't grow up in church, as I've said a lot before, so I didn't memorize all the first, second, and fourth verses of all these songs. But since I became a Christian as a teenager, there have been a bunch of different hymns that have left really an indelible impact on me and have helped me internalize godly truth in my daily walk. So this week on the Daily Blade, we're going to be looking at five of my favorite hymns of all time. And we're going to dig into the lyrics and look at the biblical truths therein. Also, I'm going to be giving you my picks for the best versions of each of those songs. So today, we're looking at the hymn, Blessed Assurance. So this hymn was written by Fannie J. Crosby in 1873. She's actually one of the most prolific hymn writers of all time, and her friend Phoebe Knapp was the composer for the hymn. So it's actually a cool story. Crosby was blind.

She went over to Napp's house one day and Knapp played a new tune on the piano for Crosby.

And as the story goes, Napp asked Crosby, what does that melody say to you? And Crosby's response was,

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine. So Crosby began almost immediately dictating the lyrics for the song.

She wrote three stanzas and the refrain and the two women completed this legendary hymn all in that same afternoon.

And my favorite version of this hymn is actually an obscure one, but it's by Shane and Shane featuring the Pissal Sisters.

And it was released on their bluegrass sampler back in 2006, and I'm pretty sure that no one ever heard it. So when I had the Shane's on the show, I asked him, like, why haven't we gotten a full bluegrass album? And they were like, because Kyle, you were one of like four people that actually liked it. But anyway, I'm going to read the lyrics to the hymn now. Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine. Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine air of salvation purchase of god born of a 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 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 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. Now, it's kind of hard to read that and not actually sing it,

but I'm saving you guys, so don't worry. So the lyrics of this hymn actually reflect Crosby's

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