1 Peter 2:23 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate;

This week, we will begin talking about the Kingdom Time Frame as we continue our look at the 5 Kingdom Principles for the Overcomer found in 1 Peter 2:21-23.

From what I can tell, there are no hymns written specifically for this verse.  It’s a shame because there are amazing truths contained here which would be particularly helpful for the culture in which we live.

In an age known for flaming emails of anger, tweets that bite, Facebook status updates that give instant life to something best left silent, verse 23 of our passage whispers a gentle admonition to let it go.  Adopt a Kingdom Time Frame.  Press on in the way Jesus did.

One hymn that expresses this well is I’m Pressing on the Upward Way.  You can listen here on the cyberhymnal  or watch a segment from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music concert (a medley for strings and piano beginning and ending with I’m Pressing on the Upward Way).

Suite 101 describes the hymn writer Johnson Oatman, Jr. this way:

American hymn writer Johnson Oatman, Jr. was born near Medford, New Jersey, on April 21, 1856. He became a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was 19 years of age. Although he never pastored a church, he was licensed to preach and was ordained by his denomination. Early on in life, he was involved in the family’s mercantile business, but when his father died, he entered the insurance business.

In 1892, he was 36 years old, he started writing gospel songs, and, from then until his death in 1922, he wrote about 3,000 gospel hymn texts. Reportedly, he generally averaged 4 to 5 new texts each week, all through his life from this period. Notably, he received no more than a dollar for each of his songs. His texts were always in great demand by the leading gospel musicians of his day, including Charles Gabriel, William James Kirkpatrick and Edwin Excell.

I’m Pressing on the Upward Way (Higher Ground)

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I’m onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Refrain

Lord, lift me up and let me stand,
By faith, on Heaven’s table land,
A higher plane than I have found;
Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.

My heart has no desire to stay
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell where those abound,
My prayer, my aim, is higher ground.

Refrain

I want to live above the world,
Though Satan’s darts at me are hurled;
For faith has caught the joyful sound,
The song of saints on higher ground.

Refrain

I want to scale the utmost height
And catch a gleam of glory bright;
But still I’ll pray till Heav’n I’ve found,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Our Friday hymn to close out the week of Kingdom Actions for the Overcomer is All the Way My Savior Leads Me written by Fanny Crosby.

When I first began at seminary, I wasn’t particularly welcomed by many of the young men who had been raised to believe women don’t do this sort of thing.  One such young man comes to mind when I think about Fanny Crosby.  He gave me a book on her life as a peace offering when he realized I wasn’t attending seminary for the express purpose of taking men’s jobs in order to lead—by my heretical feminism–all of Evangelical Christendom on the fastest pathway to hell. (This tells you something about how I was viewed.)

In the inscription just inside the front cover of this gesture of friendship, he wrote:

May you find hope and peace in the life of one of the Great Cloud of Witnesses. Perhaps there will be a day God will Repay you for these ‘years of the locust’ (Joel 2:25-26).  Perhaps you will look Back Someday and say, ‘I have forgotten the years of the locust’ and ‘for I know whatever befall me, Jesus doeth all things well’ (page 154) But no matter—Relief or Not, our longing for heaven will only grow for: ‘Perfect Rest for me is Promised in my Father’s house above. (page 154).

Want to know something funny?  I sought out this book to write today’s installment on this hymn and Crosby.  But, I had no recollection of the inscription and no hint until just now that on page 154 (quoted in the inscription) were highlighted lyrics to All the Way My Savior Leads Me.  (God is winking today.)

Fanny Crosby, too, was an Overcomer.  Born the only daughter of John and Mercy Crosby, Fanny developed a severe eye inflammation at age 6 weeks and whether due to the mustard poultice treatment or a congenital condition being revealed, Fanny was permanently blind.   In Bonnie C. Harvey’s book Fanny Crosby, she writes,

The first thing people focused on when they met Fanny was her blindness.  But she regarded her affliction as a gift from God, saying, “It was the best thing that could have happened to me” and “How in the world could I have lived such a helpful life as I have lived had I not been blind?”  She believed that without her blindness she would never have received an education.  Further if she had not gone to the Institution for the Blind in New York, she would not have had the contacts to allow her to write hymns for a nationally known publishing firm. 

Fanny also thought that sight must be a distraction.  She had been able to develop her memory and powers of concentration because of her blindness.  She sensed, too, that her lack of sight enhanced her appeal as a speaker, creating a bond of sympathy between her and her audiences that made them receptive to the Gospel message.

Crosby harbored no bitterness toward the doctor, saying, “I would tell him that he unwittingly did me the greatest favor in the world.”  She delighted in the knowledge that the first face her eyes would ever see would be that of her Savior Jesus Christ.

Crosby’s blindness resulted in the kind of Kingdom Actions that turn from victimhood and fatalism and to acknowledge suffering’s ability to press us forward into the will of God and be true Overcomers.  Blindness allowed her to conduct rescue missions work, advocate for blind studies in front of Congress, teach classes, preach sermons, leave money in her will establishing a home for aged senior males, and to produce her profound legacy of writing over 8,000 hymns including Blessed Assurance, To God Be the Glory, Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior and of course today’s hymn All the Way My Savior Leads Me.  You can listen here on the cyberhymnal or enjoy Rich Mullins (another Kingdom Actions Overcomer) perform this hymn in concert.

All the way my Savior leads me;
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt His tender mercy,
Who through life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in Him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well;
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread;
Gives me grace for every trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see;
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me
O the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised
In my Father’s house above.
When my spirit, clothed immortal,
Wings its flight to realms of day
This my song through endless ages—
Jesus led me all the way;
This my song through endless ages—
Jesus led me all the way.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible about Kingdom Actions is set apart by this disclaimer:  “The earliest manuscripts and many other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11…but the story may well be authentic.” This is my favorite verse:

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

I like this story not because it’s got a disclaimer and I feel like the rebel I secretly want to be, but because I like picturing my Jesus, knowing full well that He alone is without sin, holding back a grin of greater knowledge, or having a twinkling eye at recognizing a pretty clever–but ineffective–trick when He sees it…or holding back His righteous anger at hypocrisy in front of His face by hyper-religious sorts that can’t hold a candle to Him, and in any case delivering an amazing shut’em-up one-liner.

This one-liner is legally perfect and a total gotcha to maintain His sinlessness in the face of their taunting His grace to submit to His law when in fact, grace and law are two perfect sides of the same Truth.

Note: He didn’t say “if any one of us is without sin.”   They were sinners. He was/is without sin.

As we continue our deep dive into the 5 Kingdom Principles for Overcoming found in 1 Peter 2:21-23, we’re looking at Kingdom Actions.  We’re up to verse 22: “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”

Yesterday we saw that Dr. Martin Luther King tried to honor what Jesus modeled for all of us.  Dr. King wasn’t perfect or sinless, but it’s nice—particularly in the “Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Miley Cyrus, Kate Gosselin Age of Poor Choices”—to see that someone like Dr. King still tried to preach honorable living.

We cannot live sinless lives as did our Savior Jesus Christ, but we can rely upon His being without sin as our confidence of His being the only suitable Messiah.  We can try to live pursuing Kingdom Actions even when accused or facing suffering and know that there is grace He can offer precisely because He did not fail whereas we do.

Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are– yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Let’s endeavor to show Kingdom Actions by seeking His guidance daily, and seeking Him also for mercy and grace for the times we fail.

Today is the 50^th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.  Click here to listen, read the text, and purchase a video.  It’s an amazing speech, full of the truth and rhetorical power one would expect from a devout Christian minister with a Kingdom Vision of Overcoming.

During the event of Dr. King’s speech, a 22-year old folk singer named Joan Baez led those in the Washington Mall (around 300,000 people gathered for A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom) in singing “We Shall Overcome.” It became a signature song of the Civil Rights Movement.

“We Shall Overcome” was defensively copyrighted by fellow folk singer Pete Seeger and others in 1963, but current research suggests its origin was not in Seeger’s adaptation, but may have begun in the mind of a black woman named Louise Shropshire as “If My Jesus Wills (I Do Believe, I’ll Overcome Some Day),” click link to hear.

Shropshire and Dr. King had a personal, loyal, and Christian connection, both viewing Overcoming as being intimately tied to the Truth of Jesus Christ.  Overcoming takes a long view. “If My Jesus Wills” contains lyrics like, “Gonna sing a new song…Gonna wear a new robe…Gonna see my Lord” all of which point directly to Jesus.

About “We Shall Overcome,”  in an interview with Blank on Blank, Seeger said,

It was the only record I ever made which sold. The record was called “We Shall Overcome.” It sold 500,000 copies, which for me was a huge sale. I was singing for some young Lutheran church people in Sundance, Idaho, and there were some older people who were mistrustful of my lefty politics.  They said: ‘Who are you intending to overcome?’ I said: ‘Well, in Selma, Alabama they’re probably thinking of Chief Pritchett.; they will overcome. And I am sure Dr. King is thinking of the system of segregation across the whole country, not just the South. For me, it means the entire world. We’ll overcome our tendencies to solve our problems with killing and learn to work together to bring this world together.’

It is doubtful that Dr. King was thinking simply of ending segregation—important though that was.  His sights were set on a distant mountain.  In a speech to the Temple Israel of Hollywood, Dr. King is quoted as saying,

Oh, I know that there are still dark and difficult days ahead. Before we get there some more of us will have to get scarred up a bit. Before we reach that majestic land some more will be called bad names. Some will be called reds and communists simply because they believe in the brotherhood of man. Before we get there some more will have to be thrown into crowded, frustrating, and depressing jail cells. Before we get there maybe somebody else like a Medgar Evers and the three civil rights workers in Mississippi this summer will have to face physical death. If physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children and their white brothers from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive. Yes, we were singing about it just a few minutes ago: “We shall overcome; we shall overcome, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome.”

And I believe it because somehow the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlyle is right: “No lie can live forever.” We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again.” We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: “Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. Yet, that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.” With this faith we will be able to hue out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to speed up the day. And in the words of prophecy,

“Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain and the crooked places straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”

This will be a great day. This will be a marvelous hour. And at that moment, figuratively speaking in biblical words: “the morning stars will sing together and the sons of God will shout for joy.”

I wonder if something of the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement died along with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the day he was killed:

• Shropshire’s “If My Jesus Wills…I’ll Overcome Some Day” (a vastly spiritual song of hope) had already been adapted by Seeger and others.  Jesus may have been willing, but was no longer welcome as the song became “We Shall Overcome” with no mention of Jesus or God whatsoever as our source of strength, perseverance, help, comfort, or faith.
• Dr. King’s “I’ve been to the mountaintop” focus heavenward on the triumphant glory of the Lord was pinned down with earthly shackles and worldly concerns, and the best we could do apart from Christ was linking human arms for manmade marches.
• Dr. King’s words—preached in a movement inspired by faith in Jesus Christ—were reduced to the political power of people to overpower–not actually overcome–by sheer numbers instead of by the eternally powerful “content of their characters” which truly transforms in the eternal scope.

Seeger’s view of everyone playing nicely together isn’t what Dr. King preached.  King did not preach so that we could have an imitation–a human-centered movement of earthbound people with a social conscience.  He preached Overcoming! 

He preached a message of Christian conscience for those looking to God for help.

King preached faith; he preached Truth; he preached love and service;

he reminded American blacks that they are among the world’s richest people, though some are impoverished by US standards; he preached non-violent protesting;

he lived Kingdom Actions like those of his Savior Jesus Christ; and he powerfully preached Kingdom ways of Overcoming…peacefully, truthfully, and ultimately triumphantly.