Sunday Hymn: O Saviour, Precious Saviour

O Savior, precious Savior,
Whom yet unseen we love!
O Name of might and favor,
All other names above!
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing;
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our holy Lord and King.

O Bringer of salvation,
Who wondrously hast wrought,
Thyself the Revelation
Of love beyond our thought;
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing;
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our gracious Lord and King.

In Thee all fullness dwelleth,
All grace and power divine;
The glory that excelleth,
O Son of God, is Thine;
We worship Thee, we bless Thee,
To Thee, O Christ, we sing:
We praise Thee, and confess Thee
Our glorious Lord and King.

O grant the consummation
Of this our song above,
In endless adoration,
And everlasting love!
Then shall we praise and bless Thee
Where perfect praises ring,
And evermore confess Thee
Our Savior and our King.

—Frances Havergal

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Update: How Vast the Benefits Divine at Field Stone Cottage
• I Will Sing of My Redeemer at Jam and Books
• Before the Lord We Bow at The Happy Wonderer
• I Know Whom I Have Believed at Whatever Things
• Not What My Hands Have Done at Rosemary at Home
• Lord’s Day 3 at Tried With Fire 
• Lord’s Day 3, 2012 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Faith Alone - January 15, 2012 at The Upward Call
• God’s Minute at Hiraeth
• Praying the Psalms - Psalm 9:1-2 at Daily On My Way to Heaven
• A Sunday Psalm: The Treasury of David - Psalm 1:3 at Theology for Girls
• A Quest for Godliness - January 15, 2012 at Alabamenagerie
• Update: A Prayer for Today at Still Reforming

Have you posted a hymn (or sermon, sermon notes, prayer, etc.) today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by contacting me using the contact form linked above, and I’ll add your post to the list. 

This Week in Housekeeping

This week, I updated these Theological Term of the Week posts:

ascension of Jesus

• Updated links.
• Added related term: intercession of Christ.

aseity

• Corrected a few embarrassing spelling errors. Apparently I can’t spell aseity and I’m against using spell check.
• Corrected a few links.
• Added links to The Self-Existence of God by A. W. Tozer and The Attributes of God, Part II:  Where Did God Come From? by S. Lewis Johnson.

assurance of salvation

• Removed dead links.
• Added links to Kevin DeYoung’s Assurance in the Reformed Confessions, Part 1 and Part 2; Tom Schreiner’s Perseverance and Assurance: A Survey and a Proposal (pdf); and D. A. Carson’s Reflections on Assurance (pdf).
• Added related terms: justification, perseverance of the saints, sanctification, saving faith.

Round the Sphere Again: Assurance

Scriptural
And in Hebrews, the book with the scary warning passages, no less. 

Ultimately, the believer’s security rests not with the believer but with the living God. His final promise in the letter, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you,” is wonderful assurance indeed. So then, “we may say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid, What can mere mortals do to me?’” (Heb. 13:5, 6).

But still there are those warning passages. How do we reconcile them with the words of encouragement and assurance? Read Collin Hansen’s whole interview with Peter O’Brien at The Gospel Coalition Blog.

Confessional
Kevin DeYoung looks at what two Reformed confessions, the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession of Faith, have to say about assurance of salvation. Both confessional documents say more-or-less the same thing: 

If you want to know if you are truly in Christ, forgiven of your sins, and sealed for eternal lifeyou should rest in the good news of justification by faith alone, listen for the Spirit speaking to your spirit that you are a child of God, and discern (with the help of others) that God is slowly but surely changing you from one degree of glory to the next. Different people at different times under different circumstances will need to hear about all three grounds of assurance.

(More on the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession of Faith.)