You Heard It Here First Folx!
Back in September I posted a prophetic prediction on this blog (see it by clicking here), and the headlines in the news one day after the election demonstrate that it has in fact come true. Our nation is deeply divided – passionately divided – and if it gets any worse people are going to start shooting!
I am among the losers on this one. I did not like either candidate for president, so I knew I would be disappointed either way. I began preparing myself and praying for our leader whoever that would be. It does not make me comfortable, in fact it disturbs me deeply, and I realize that damage and wounds are deep, that Christian platitudes are not going to help. But if we can head off civil war, the benefit will be worth almost any cost!
I am most disappointed in my church. This prophetic prediction was not hard to see coming except unless you were buried in either denial or passions. Some other love of power has blinded you from the plain truth, not mystical complexity. But the church, as I see it, has mostly sided with a candidate (the larger part with Trump, the smaller part with Clinton) but neither side represented Jesus! Or the church has ignored the election. AND I would say it has been a strange mixture of both. Therefore, when it comes to being a beacon of light for reconciliation, humility, and peace, the church has been AWOL on this one, and our culture suffers from it!
Please, join me in prayer. Keep in mind, God has used pagan kings for his purposes many times before. The United States, despite the rhetoric of a few vocal jerks, is NOT a Christian Nation at all, and never has been. On our best day we were a Deist Nation that favored the trappings of a Judeo-Christian faith. The bluff is called on all that now. The serious Christians need to get on our knees and talk to our KING about the things going on in this country, and we need to hold our are arms wide (in a cruciform shape) and bring peace and reconciliation to the parties divided as best we can and with God’s help.
Can I get an AMEN???
Anybody?
Fat Beggars School of Prophets 
I was writing on the same subject at the same time, friend! I’ve included you at the end of my post.
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To any of my readers, I encourage you to drop in on BrookeM’s blog and see the post she put up today! I think it is very insightful, and will help direct our ministry where it can do the most for reconciliation.
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BrookeM, what is your blog address?
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https://choosingcompassion.wordpress.com/
Yes… that would be some important information.
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And, of course, AMEN!
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AMEN
I just wonder if God’s real expectation for our action and involvement is not so political, but in the hidden, mundane and thankless things like loving the unlovable, forgiving the unforgivable, and giving to the undeserving. In essence, doing to others what He has done more perfectly for us. One of the things that is so striking to me about Jesus is that He is always having to “unlearn” His disciples from their patriotic Israeli mindset. And of course they had the right to take pride in their nation, after all they were God’s chosen people. But when Jesus steps onto the scene He is so troubling to them as the Messiah because He is so miraculous and yet so very un-King-like at the same time. In fact Jesus was a real political failure. He made no attempt to create a political movement, or even to side with the current political entities of His time and place. He didn’t even side with the revolutionaries who were rebelling against the Romans who had forcefully taken over and were oppressing God’s chosen people. Instead His deliberate work on earth was love and compassion to individuals. It was to the poor and to the broken and to the admittedly messed up ragamuffins like us so that we would be eternally healed and enter His eternal Kingdom. In the last part of the book of Matthew Jesus gives the Apostles, and us, a specific job to do. It is to make disciples from all the people groups of the world and to teach them the very things that Jesus taught. It’s the great commission. And while this doesn’t feel very active sometimes, it is the real objective in our being here.
Political involvement holds the promise of doing something, but I’m not sure that it delivers. It makes us feel good, like we’re doing something to make the world a better place, and it seems like our American, and even Christian responsibility. But really, other than our one vote every four years and our campaign to get everyone else to cast their one vote every four years, what is really being done for the unborn or the desperate mother? It seems to me that we are more interested in engaging in a political war than an advancement of the Gospel of Jesus. We have centuries of the Mosaic Law bearing testimony to the fact that law does not change people’s hearts, but now we know that only Love Incarnate can. Maybe too radical to accept at first, but Paul writes: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20). . . so if I were serving as an ambassador to a foreign country I may offer advice on behalf of my King, but it remains the hosting nation’s responsibility on how to govern itself. As Christians we are commissioned to extend the Gospel of our King Jesus. More involvement than this and I risk getting “entangled in civilian pursuits.” Most certainly there is a place for government and for people to participate in it, but what should we as Christians be busying ourselves with? How should our lives be used? We could either be used as a vessel of honor, ushering in the Kingdom, or used as a vessel of dishonor, enforcing morals and flushing the world’s toilet of evil. (Referencing 2 Tm 2:20-21.) This is not an excuse to live life in the shadows, but instead a commission to live out the Gospel of Jesus, not through enforcing morality, but in active real-life loving. . . on the streets of our towns and cities, to the neighbor next door, to the guy on the corner asking for change, to the beat up bedraggled people that we work with, to the waiter who doesn’t deserve our tip, to the guy who lets his dog poop in my yard, to the republicans, democrats and socialists, to everyone that we encounter. This is how we are His voice to the world.
I simply take exception to the Americano flavor of Christianity that states we as Christians must vote. Jesus is the ultimate example of letting unrighteous men work within their unrighteous system. Jesus let them crucify Him, while professing, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” This same worrisome testimony is continued in the life of the Apostle Paul. When he stood before those in political authority Paul’s message was simply the gospel of Jesus Christ. No political activism, no peace in the Middle East speech. Instead he wrote these words during the days of Nero, the infamous persecutor of the Church: “I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions (1 Tm 2:1, 2a).” But the instructions of Paul to the Church did not end here. Paul tells believers to pray and he also directs them to submit to those same tyrannical rulers:”Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient. . . to speak evil of no one (Ti 3:1,2a).” Submission and giving up one’s rights is a troubling thought, especially in the context of Paul instructing submission to men like Nero who had Christians dunked in tar, nailed to crosses and ignited as living torches for his garden parties. So the question is, by voting am I acting on behalf of Jesus, or what I would rather Jesus do? If acting on behalf of Jesus is my true intended purpose, then I would do well to follow what I know to be His clear, explicit instructions: living out the love of the gospel of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:2).” This isn’t sticking one’s head in the sand. This is radical faith that the King of Kings knows best, and the radical obedience to make disciples not through law but through love.
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The Johannie Apocalypse records early on a all to the Seven Churches of Asia (modern Turkey) “to repent or else I will come quickly and remove your candlestick.”
My study now long ago revealed that each of churches (exceptEphesus) were deeply engaged with their immediate culture suggesting “as goes the community, so goes the church.”
That seems the most powerful temptation! It seems almost like a proverb or a rule.
What I’ve not found in my readings and study is an inspired description of what a “church without its candlestick” finally looks or acts like.
I am most curious because I suspect a number of modern day congregation may have already become either very dim (if that’s an option) or perhaps their light source has been removed.
Seems worthy of careful study staying on guard not to “read one’s own guesses into the matter.”
Maybe you and/or your readers might be students of such, blessings.
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“But if we can head off civil war, the benefit will be worth almost any cost…”
I would love to be wrong, but I believe America will undergo a type of civil war.
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That really may well be, Larry, and if so the church appears to be MIA/AWOL or just plain gone. Where is that salt and light? Championing the garbage we just went through??? Or holding leaders to account and showing the way of peace?
Sorry, I saw 700 Club all thrilled with the results. I think the church has chosen poorly and/or hid from trouble. We have a job to do, and it is clear. We are late to the fight, but we have God, who does that Two Corinthians quoting president have? Who did that abortion promoting loser have? I am sure neither were representing Jesus. The real question is: Does the church? War or no war, we are to be salt n light….
Thanx so much for your input! I am inclined to worry that you are right. Let us pray…
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Amen and amen!
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