Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Fanny Crosby, who wrote that
joyful hymn, was truly blessed with an unwavering confidence in God's loving grace! Born
into a humble family in 1820, she became totally blind through a medical error six weeks later. But
her overwhelming lifelong response was gratefulness, not bitterness or complaints. When
only eight years old she wrote,
"O what a happy soul am I!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world, contented I will be.
"How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't,
To weep
and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot and I won't."[1]
Fanny shared her joy through hundreds of hymns
sung in churches throughout the English-speaking world. "I thank him for the dispensation
[of blindness]," she wrote one day. "I might not have sung hymns to the
praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting
things about me."[2]
Some years earlier, a young man in Prussia [part
of the old German empire]
was learning that same lesson.
From Prison to Praise
Few would have guessed that George Muller, a Prussian boy with a bent for
trouble, would one day trust God to meet the needs of thousands of
orphans. His early life showed no signs of such faith. Born in 1805, he made
little effort to resist the temptations he faced during his first twenty
years. He stole, lied, cheated, used forgery to prosper, and craved immoral
thrills. Later he wrote in his diary:
"At the age of sixteen I became an inmate
of a prison, dwelling with thieves and murderers."[3]
After a year of confinement, he continued his
"wild" depraved lifestyle for three more years. Then everything changed! A newly converted friend
invited him to a "Christian meeting." There God touched his heart,
transformed his life, and began preparing him for a ministry of prayer,
teaching, worldwide distribution of Bible courses, and loving care for
orphans in poverty-stricken Bristol, England.
"I had once fully served Satan," Muller wrote. "But now, drawn by the love of
Christ, I was willing to suffer affliction for the sake of Jesus."[3]
And through the cross, God prepared him for that suffering:
"I came to England physically weakened and soon became very ill....
Yet the weaker I became in body, the happier I was in spirit. Every sin I
had ever committed was brought to mind, but I realized that
I was washed
and made completely clean
in the blood of Jesus. This
realization brought me great peace...."[3]
God opened one door after another for His trusting, listening servant.
And as He led Muller through each challenge, Muller gladly obeyed and
grew strong in faith.
At the heart of every ministry was prayer. Muller would accept no salary
from any ministry. Instead, he trusted God alone to meet all his needs
-- then his Shepherd would get all the glory! [4]
That wonderful Shepherd heard every cry and
met every need. He would touch the hearts of caring people -- beginning with the
poor people in Bristol, who (like the poor widow Jesus commended) often gave all
they had. Later, as word of his orphan ministry reached around the world,
the large sums needed for land and construction began to pour in.
Gratefully, Muller
wrote:
"If I, a poor man, simply by payer and faith
obtained, without asking
any individual,
the finances for establishing and carrying on an orphan house, this
might strengthen the faith of the children of God."[3]
Armed with this unshakable faith, he faced all kinds of tests: physical weakness, serious sickness, empty pantries at the orphanages, the loss of
his little son, and the struggles of those he loved. Days -- sometimes even
weeks -- would
pass without any visible donations, but somehow the rent was paid and the children
had food to eat.
One morning the concerned "matron" in one of the orphan
houses rushed to Muller with bad news: "The children are all ready for breakfast,"
she said, but "there's nothing to eat.” Sure enough. As Muller came in
and looked
around, he saw three hundred children standing behind their chairs and empty
plates, waiting for food and watching him.
Muller bent down and clasped the hand of a little girl.
“Where’s the food?” she whispered.
“God will supply,” answered Muller gently.
Then he asked them to join him in a simple prayer:
“Dear God, we thank you for what you are going
to give us to eat. Amen.”
He smiled to the
children. “You may be seated,” he said, confident that God would provide. And
sure enough. As
soon as they were all seated in front
of their empty plates, they heard someone knocking at the door. It was a baker with a tray of fresh bread.
“I
couldn’t sleep last night," he explained. "I kept thinking that you would need
bread this morning.... So I got up at two o’clock and made three batches for you.... There
are two more trays out in the cart."
While they feasted on the bread, they heard
another knock. There stood the milkman. "The wheel on my cart has been
broken, right outside your establishment," he said. "I'll have to lighten my
load before I can fix it. There's ten full cans of milk on it. Could you use
them?" Then looking at the orphans sitting in neat rows, he added. "Free of
charge, of course...."[5]
Muller's personal diary is full of similar stories, for His all-sufficient,
all-seeing Father
never failed
to meet the urgent needs of the day:
~No money?
A letter would come with the needed amount!
~No coal left for heating?
"In our time of need," wrote Muller, "our brother sent a load of coal."[3]
~Need land for building three
new, larger Orphan Homes? In the middle of the
night, God awakened the owner of a perfect plot of land to prepare his heart to
offer Muller an affordable price.
The Truth behind the Triumph
Trials and triumphs have always been part of the Christian life, and
Jesus' disciples faced spiritual warfare
and experienced amazing miracles again and
again. But that life of victory didn't begin until after the cross. Before
the cross, Peter had to come face to face with his own utter failure to
follow His Lord. Ponder this conversation between Jesus and Peter:
“Simon, Simon! Indeed,
Satan has asked for you,
that
he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith
should not fail...” (Luke 22:31-32)
Peter's answer showed noble intentions but
ignorance of his fallen nature: “Lord,
I am ready to go with You, both to
prison and to death.”
But he was not
ready! Well aware of coming failure, Jesus warned His friend, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not
crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me.” (Luke
22:32-34)
Peter did deny His precious Lord -- three times! And the
third time the rooster crowed his heart was broken. He mourned and repented, but his new life in Christ
didn't begin until after he received new life through the Holy Spirit.
Finally he was ready.
Like George
Muller, he would count on all of God's heavenly resources for daily triumph.
What did this victory cost our Lord? His agony and prayer in the garden
of Gethsemane shows us a partial answer:
"Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to
the disciples, 'Sit here while I go and pray over there.' And He took
with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and
He began to be sorrowful
and deeply distressed.
"Then He said to them, 'My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.
Stay here and watch with Me.' He went a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying,
'O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless,
not as I will, but as You will.'
"He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to
Peter, 'What!
Could you not watch with Me one hour?
'Watch and pray,
lest you enter into temptation. 'The spirit indeed is willing, but the
flesh is weak.'”
"...a second time, He went away and prayed, saying,
'O My Father,
'if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it,
Your will be
done.' ' And He came and found them
asleep again.... So He left them, went away again, and prayed the third
time... Then He came to His disciples and said to them, 'Are you
still sleeping and resting?... Rise, let us be
going. See, My betrayer is at hand.” (Matthew 26:38-45)
Oswald Chambers helps us understand the initial agony of our sin-bearer
who endured the judgment we deserve:
"The agony in Gethsemane is the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His
destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is drawn aside to reveal all
it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God.
His agony is
the basis of the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ is a
triumph for the son of Man.... Every human
being can
[if he will accept God's gift] get through into the presence of God now because of what the Son
of Man went through."[6]
Having come to the cross and received new
life in Christ, George Muller happily gave God the rest of his life. Like all of
humanity, he faced his share of earthly trials and spiritual warfare, but he
was freed from the chains of sin and Satan. In fact, the trials that he and Fanny Crosby
had to face were nothing compared to the glory of walking with Jesus for all
eternity!
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.
1.
http://www.wholesomewords.org/biography/bcrosby5.html
2.
http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/r/o/crosby_fj.htm
3.
The Autobiography of George Muller (Whitaker House, 1985), pps.12, 22,
26, 73, 124
4.
Later, he would often share the various needs with his wife and one close
ministry friend.
5. Janet and Geoff Benge, George Muller (YWAM Publisher, 1998), pps.
166-168.
6.
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Dodd, Mead & Co., 1935),
p.96. (April 5)
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