THINKING OUT LOUD

Yeah, that was MY president who gave the State of the Union message last week! I didn’t vote for him, don’t believe he’s doing a very good job for the American people, and would like to see him “resign” of his own volition….. BUT, like it or not, he’s my president right now …and I pray for him every day. I shudder to think what condition we would be in if we who call ourselves Christian DIDN”T pray for our national leaders these days!
Some days it seems as though things just couldn’t get any worse, but the next day comes and another friend has lost his job, his home, or his will to live. Never before in the nation’s history has there been a greater need for those of us who claim to be “Christians”..…(followers of Christ)….to get
Off our duffs and get to work! And I don’t mean to “go out and witness for Christ”! This is NOT OUR JOB….this is our CALLING! Our job is to impact and change the world in which we live by “being witnesses as we go about our daily lives”….because as Christ is, so are we (or should be) in this world. Jesus went about “doing good”.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the op-portunity we have as Christians to make a tre-mendous difference in changing our nation’s direction this year. Many U.S. House and Senate seats will be filled again this year! Do you ever ask yourself “What would Jesus do if He were in our shoes in today’s world? I can tell you one thing I’m certain of

JESUS WOULDN’T SUPPORT YOUR POLITICAL PARTY,
MY POLITICAL PARTY OR ANY POLITICAL PARTY AT ALL

I get so incredibly weary of hearing my pro-fessing Christian friends tell me that their political party is the “Christian party” and that whether or not I support their party is a test of my Christianity. Some of them want me to believe that it is Christian to support, among other things:

Aggressive war and the wholesale mass murder of innocents ...Torture... Spying ... Rogue Police...
Guilt without trial... Martial Law ... Prohibition ... Assassinations ... Internment Camps...
Trade sanctions and embargoes

They want me to join a party whose leaders promote these things claiming that this is the truly “Christian” thing to do.

Oppressive Taxation... Redistribution of wealth ... Aggressive environmental legislation ... Abolition of property rights...
Government monopolies in education & health care... Citizen disarmament... Affirmative action and racial quotas in employment and education

Government is force. It forces you to do things, to not do things or to pay for things. Jesus only implemented force one time: when He kicked the money changers out of the Temple. There was no doubt much sin, vice and inequality in His time. But He never once said or implied that the way to address these issues was to elect Christians to office, pass Christian laws and thereby usher in some kind of optimal Christian society. Yet today, we hear no end of it: just elect this slate of Christians to office, support the enactment of this menu of laws and we will arrive at some kind of optimal Christian society. This hope in the kingdoms of man is a false hope.

Jesus had no political agenda. Period. Indeed, in Matthew 4, Satan – i.e. the prince of this world – tempts Jesus twice, and Jesus refuses both offers. Then, Satan makes Jesus an offer He simply cannot refuse: all the kingdoms of the world. While it is noteworthy that Jesus does not question Satan’s authority to make this offer, it is more significant that Jesus flat out rejects this offer too.

Let’s stop trivializing Jesus by trying to fit Him into our partisan political box.. Let us all – myself included – get back into our Bible and see what it says rather than what the world says. And then let us live our lives accordingly and leave the societal results up to God.