It’s been an interesting week. Many are celebrating. Others feel hopeless. Some are choosing to cling to Jesus and trust that He’s got this.
This is so deeply layered and it’s easy to take our eyes off Jesus and sink into a lake of fear, hopelessness, and despair. Jesus is urging us to not take our eyes off of Him; to not doubt Him. He’s reminding us to love our neighbors no matter what, and to pray for our enemies. Full stop.
Love our neighbors and pray for our enemies. That doesn’t mean we should purposely, carelessly, or recklessly make enemies. It means that when we are living for Christ, we will inevitably make enemies. But goodness gracious, Church, we’re not supposed to be enemies of each other.
Satan seeds the earth with fear, evil, and confusion. He wants to kill, steal, and destroy. He will use anyone who falls for his tricks of power and pride. He wants to divide us and he’s winning.
I hate the political atmosphere. It is full of arguing, name-calling, misunderstanding, foolishness, ignorance, pride, and hatred. Having a different opinion isn’t hate. But wishing someone dead for their views definitely is.
What are we doing?
Who threw love out the window? I promise you that all of it saddens God. He is not rooting for one side or the other. He’s hoping that His children learn to love and step into the greatest commandments. And if we lose this country, we will quickly learn we aren’t enemies of each other. Why wait for that?!
This is all a distraction. God wants us focused on the eternal, not those things that will fade away. Don’t look now, but democracy is one of those things and it’s been slowly fading for a while now.
We must love first and allow that love to flow into everything we do and say. Nothing else matters. You can have the best talking points and biblical backup, but if you lack love, it’s noise. No one can hear you. If you want to be heard, first you must see the person. You must see them as a person with a heart, soul, and emotions, and as a child of God—lost or not. You must see them because you care enough to love them, not simply because you want to be heard.
Do you see how all this motivation stems from the heart first? Is our motive to be right or is it to love?
“Loving people means telling them the truth.”
Does it? Truth without kindness, patience, forbearance, hope or endurance has no love. Truth mixed with envy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, selfishness, irritability, and unforgiveness lacks love.
If we are speaking up in politics in the name of Jesus, then we have to do it His way, not ours. Otherwise, don’t speak His name. We can’t say, “Jesus would do this,” when we aren’t even following His greatest commandment to love. Love isn’t just action or social justice or caring for the widow and orphan. It’s a heart posture. Anyone can do these things, that doesn’t mean it’s done from love. Pride, power, and self-righteousness are common poisons in the Church just as they are in the world.
Many Christians fight for biblical principles, but we are doing it all wrong. Let’s be honest—many of us are not seeking Jesus daily to actually know what He wants us to do or say. We’re picking some popular Bible verses to show what Jesus would do. But we’re ignoring the rest of His teachings. Then we take a few more to use as weapons against people.
People should use the Bible as a weapon against evil, not against others. We should want the best for people—yes, that includes those who frustrate us and can’t see what we see. We should want people to be in a strong relationship with the Lord above all else. That’s what matters first. That’s what Jesus died to give us. He didn’t die so we’d have Christian politicians.
Do I want a country where openly practicing our faith is illegal? Of course not! But it’s still not the most important thing. Because no one can actually take Jesus away from us.
We say we want our country to uphold its Christian values. Yet, we often fail to live these values at home and with our neighbors. We aren’t loving God or others as He calls us to. We’re too busy loving ourselves and our own comfortable lives.
All these things are ash without love. That is—love defined by God, not man.
Until we begin with love, we will not hear each other and nothing will change.
One thing I know for certain–this is bigger, deeper, and wider than the politics of the United States. This is deeply spiritual and Church, we need to wake up.
Jesus didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword. Not a physical sword, a spiritual one. Bringing the gospel requires people to make a choice–acceptance or rejection of the Truth. More to come…
Love always,
Christin
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