Christians // Call // Church
To my fellow Christians,
When polls closed on Tuesday, it was not the beginning or end of anything for us. Even before I knew the outcome, I knew that my comportment and actions cannot change based on what everyone else is doing or saying. My citizenship is in the same place it has been for the past thirteen years, in the Kingdom of God. The work that I do to enact change in the world is through political, moral, personal, and corporate means, but it is all to the same end: to glorify God and make his name great. If my filter on the way I interact with the world is through the lens of Scripture, then I can love Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton because Christ first loved them.
I do not lose heart. I do not fear. I do not allow the work of the devil to work in me and I do my best to ensure that others do not stumble on my account. I think of that song I sang in Sunday school as a kid, "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do". He is in control and I am a part of His Kingdom. God is not on my side or on America's side because He does not change or waiver. It is us as Christians, individually and as the Church Body who must choose to be on His side. If I am with Him, nothing can be against me.
To know and love God is not just something I hear on Sundays, it's my life purpose. The fight to share God's love doesn't stop when political powers of the nation I reside in change. The fight doesn't stop when all the babies are living to birth. The fight doesn't stop when there are no more homeless. The fight doesn't stop when every one is eating three meals a day. The fight doesn't stop until every tribe and nation has heard about the love of God. It doesn't stop until the gospel is spread around the world. It doesn't stop into friends and neighbors and strangers know about the reason for this joy within me. It doesn't stop until we see Jesus in His glory.
To love God is to love others for to say I love my creator and not love His creation is doing a disservice. I cannot tell you how God wants you to love others. This isn't political so if you think the best way to feed the hungry is through the soup kitchen down the way and that is the way you spread God's love to others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. If you think the best way to care for the poor is to change the heart of this nation through changing the laws of this nation to better provide for them and that is the way you show God's love to others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. If you think the best way to care for the orphan and the widow is by creating ministries through the church and that is the way you share God's love with others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. We are all part of one church body, but each one of us has a different set of gifts and talents. God instills a different passion inside of each of us and there are different ways to enact change. Our goal as the Church is to love God and love others and spread this love by making disciples. If this is our mission both corporately and individually, then we are on God's side and that is what unites us as a Body. If every part of the body were to try and do every job, then we would be incredibly inefficient.
I think about the people who have most successfully enacted change on the world, and the one trait I see in common with them is focus. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves because that was his focus as president. The woman's suffrage movement was successful because they were not focused on all people's rights to every thing across the world, but they were successful because they focused on a specific right for a specific group within a specific place. MLKj was successful because he had a specific set of people in a specific place who fought in a specific method (peacefully).
In the same way, the Church Body needs to focus on the mission. If we lose sight of our mission, then we are no longer going to be united. It is so easy to care so much for a cause and be so involved in it that the specific cause can become bigger to us than our mission. It is so easy to care in a way that we forget why we are loving in the first place. We are not loving just to spread love like some kind of band of hippies. We are loving to spread Love, for God is love and it is His Love and His Truth that we are sharing with the world, not as citizens of the world, but as ambassadors for Christ. So we are called not just to love the people we like, but we are called to humbly love the unlovely.
The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. If we as Christians allow fear to immobilize us or even worse, if we are motivated by fear to act, then we are losing the battle. I do not fear. I do not lose heart. For though outwardly I am wearing away, inwardly, I am being renewed day by day. I do not focus on the seen. I do not focus on the turmoil of our country or who the leaders are, but I fix my eyes on the unseen, on God's plan for His people that we have the opportunity to participate in, to glimpse if we are tethered to Him. For the seen is temporary; what is four or eight years in eternity but a grain of sand? The unseen is eternal. God has laid out a plan from the dawn of creation and we all can play a small part of that plan if we are willing. This plan is unchanging. Our God is unchanging. We will not be swayed by the waves and the storm if we are tethered to the unchanging God.
When polls closed on Tuesday, it was not the beginning or end of anything for us. Even before I knew the outcome, I knew that my comportment and actions cannot change based on what everyone else is doing or saying. My citizenship is in the same place it has been for the past thirteen years, in the Kingdom of God. The work that I do to enact change in the world is through political, moral, personal, and corporate means, but it is all to the same end: to glorify God and make his name great. If my filter on the way I interact with the world is through the lens of Scripture, then I can love Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton because Christ first loved them.
I do not lose heart. I do not fear. I do not allow the work of the devil to work in me and I do my best to ensure that others do not stumble on my account. I think of that song I sang in Sunday school as a kid, "My God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do". He is in control and I am a part of His Kingdom. God is not on my side or on America's side because He does not change or waiver. It is us as Christians, individually and as the Church Body who must choose to be on His side. If I am with Him, nothing can be against me.
To know and love God is not just something I hear on Sundays, it's my life purpose. The fight to share God's love doesn't stop when political powers of the nation I reside in change. The fight doesn't stop when all the babies are living to birth. The fight doesn't stop when there are no more homeless. The fight doesn't stop when every one is eating three meals a day. The fight doesn't stop until every tribe and nation has heard about the love of God. It doesn't stop until the gospel is spread around the world. It doesn't stop into friends and neighbors and strangers know about the reason for this joy within me. It doesn't stop until we see Jesus in His glory.
To love God is to love others for to say I love my creator and not love His creation is doing a disservice. I cannot tell you how God wants you to love others. This isn't political so if you think the best way to feed the hungry is through the soup kitchen down the way and that is the way you spread God's love to others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. If you think the best way to care for the poor is to change the heart of this nation through changing the laws of this nation to better provide for them and that is the way you show God's love to others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. If you think the best way to care for the orphan and the widow is by creating ministries through the church and that is the way you share God's love with others, then keep up the work to further God's kingdom. We are all part of one church body, but each one of us has a different set of gifts and talents. God instills a different passion inside of each of us and there are different ways to enact change. Our goal as the Church is to love God and love others and spread this love by making disciples. If this is our mission both corporately and individually, then we are on God's side and that is what unites us as a Body. If every part of the body were to try and do every job, then we would be incredibly inefficient.
I think about the people who have most successfully enacted change on the world, and the one trait I see in common with them is focus. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves because that was his focus as president. The woman's suffrage movement was successful because they were not focused on all people's rights to every thing across the world, but they were successful because they focused on a specific right for a specific group within a specific place. MLKj was successful because he had a specific set of people in a specific place who fought in a specific method (peacefully).
In the same way, the Church Body needs to focus on the mission. If we lose sight of our mission, then we are no longer going to be united. It is so easy to care so much for a cause and be so involved in it that the specific cause can become bigger to us than our mission. It is so easy to care in a way that we forget why we are loving in the first place. We are not loving just to spread love like some kind of band of hippies. We are loving to spread Love, for God is love and it is His Love and His Truth that we are sharing with the world, not as citizens of the world, but as ambassadors for Christ. So we are called not just to love the people we like, but we are called to humbly love the unlovely.
The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is fear. If we as Christians allow fear to immobilize us or even worse, if we are motivated by fear to act, then we are losing the battle. I do not fear. I do not lose heart. For though outwardly I am wearing away, inwardly, I am being renewed day by day. I do not focus on the seen. I do not focus on the turmoil of our country or who the leaders are, but I fix my eyes on the unseen, on God's plan for His people that we have the opportunity to participate in, to glimpse if we are tethered to Him. For the seen is temporary; what is four or eight years in eternity but a grain of sand? The unseen is eternal. God has laid out a plan from the dawn of creation and we all can play a small part of that plan if we are willing. This plan is unchanging. Our God is unchanging. We will not be swayed by the waves and the storm if we are tethered to the unchanging God.
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