Faith and Voting

In the days leading up to one of the most historic presidential elections, I found myself hating to see anything come across either the news, commercials, even Facebook and Twitter because everything was so politically charged. Seeing people childishly “unfriend” people because of their political beliefs would have made me laugh if it was not so sad. Even on the day of the election and the morning after, I cannot help but be completely amazed at the Facebook and Twitter chatter.  Both sides of the political debate spewing out vile and judgmental comments about what did or what should have or what might happen as a result.  Some of this can be expected.  I never would expect a people who no longer live by the moral code of Scripture to behave in accordance with that moral code.  But I am not talking about that people.  I am talking about supposed people of God who are speaking just as many vile and judgmental things as those who claim no association with God.  Christians who rant and rave about how they cannot believe another Christian would be so ignorant and backwards as to vote for a Republican.  Christians who rant and rave about how they cannot believe another Christian would ignore their Christian duty and vote for a Democrat.  What has gotten into us?  We are one people and we are God’s chosen.

As it says in James 3:9-10 “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”

Now let me be very clear about something.  I have very firm beliefs.  Those beliefs strongly influence my position on a number of moral, social, and economic issues.  In fact, my beliefs on certain issues make it such that I have a very difficult time even considering certain political candidates because they associate themselves with a political party that is known to take an opposing position on those issues that I hold to so strongly. When I voted on November 6, I did not actually vote for any particular candidate.  Rather I voted against certain principles that I felt strongly about as a Christian.  In fact, I will even tell you that I was not completely comfortable voting for the candidate I voted for, but rather was choosing him because of his party’s platform on those issues rather than him as an individual.  I hear the negative rhetoric from the other side about what I believe and I think “That’s just not true, you have it all wrong.”  On the other hand, one of the godliest men I know – a man I look up to spiritually in many respects – sees the world through a completely different political lens than I do.  We hold to all the same moral and biblical values.  Our theology is almost identical.  And yet, when it comes to politics, he makes almost completely opposite choices than I make – and he does so holding firmly to his Christian beliefs.  We have had minor conversations about this, but nothing too deep.  Honestly, I did not want to go too deep with him on those issues.  But at the end of the day, I frankly do not see it from his perspective nor do I think I ever will see it from his perspective.  Despite that, NEVER would I EVER speak harshly about this man or his convictions.  I could not imagine calling him names, judging him, or speaking badly about him.  I completely respect him - even in our disagreement.

Right now some of us are happy and some of us are very unhappy.  Many of us see hope for the future and just as many of us see darkness and decay.  This is no excuse to begin attacking one another.  What is wrong with us as the Body of Christ that we can be so harsh and unloving with each other?  I believe James also has the answer to this question as well.

James 4:1-3 says “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

I believe the reason that we are so angry with each other over the outcome of this political cycle is that we have not been voting by faith.  Am I saying that the belief system many of us have used to shape our voting is wrong?  Well, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t.  However, the very fact that there is so much quarreling and negativity surrounding the election results indicates to me that perhaps we have been far more selfish than we want to admit and have not placed our faith in God when it comes to the political process.   Rather, at least based on the evidence I see, it appears that many of us still place our faith in our government rather than in our God.  Our convictions are firm.  We feel quite strongly about our moral compass, our social mindset, and our economic point of view.  However, when it comes to how those views should be propagated, we place our faith in the government rather than in God.  If the government goes our way, we are happy.  If the government goes the other way, we are unhappy.  Since the government will go one way or another, someone will be happy and someone will be unhappy.  That is life, but as Christians we cannot let it divide us.  We shouldn’t let it divide us as a country, but we must not let it divide us as Christians.

At the end of the day, our responsibility as Christians is not to ensure that the government looks or does not look a certain way.  Yes, we are to perform our civic duty and we are to use all means necessary to promote the moral and social values we hold fast to as Christians.  However, it is ultimately not through government that those values will propagate.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus called us to be “salt and light” in the world around us.  That means we are to light the path so that we show the world the way to Jesus.  That means we are to be a social influence and a moral preservative in our communities.  Jesus did not overturn Caesar and force the Kingdom of Heaven from the top down.  Rather, he began at the bottom and began winning the Kingdom of Heaven one soul at a time.  Eventually, that fire caught on and spread throughout the entire world.  I hope that everyone exercised their civic duty and privilege and did everything they could to influence their world through the political process.  Likewise I hope everyone did do so using whatever convictions they believed were appropriate for a Christian.  At the end of the day, though, we cannot tear each other apart because of the outcome. 

If you are disappointed about the elections, that is OK.  If you are elated about the elections, that is OK too.  At the end of the day, though, it will be God that either blesses or condemns our country. It will be God that will determine whether we prosper or fail.  We must NOT fall into the trap of placing our faith in our government rather than placing our faith in Jesus Christ.  Regardless of the outcome of the election, I truly believe that God knows what he is doing.  Maybe it is good for our country.  Maybe it is bad for our country.  Either way, God is working out his plan.  Romans 13:1 says “…there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”  I believe that… and am reminded of these words of Jesus in John 13:34…

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

I hope this puts a slightly different perspective on the election and perhaps influences how you will interact with your world over the next few weeks and months as the outcome of this election plays out.  I would like to know your thoughts on this or on any of my posts.  If you like, please leave me a comment.

Change Your Filter

The other day I was driving down the road, drinking Diet Coke from my extra large, hot pink, Breast Cancer Foundation tumbler.  The drink had sat in my car long enough that the ice began to melt and mix with the soda.  It is bad enough to drink watered down Diet Coke, but when I took a drink, it had a very poor, almost plastic-like taste that was considerably less than desirable.  It was at that point that I remembered I had been meaning to change out the water filter in our refrigerator for over a month now.

Let’s be clear.  I think we have really good water in our neck of the woods.  It is clean and tastes well.  You can hold up a glass straight out of the faucet and it looks clear.  I have no problem drinking water from any faucet in the house.  On the other hand, there is nothing better than ice-cold, filtered water, so if the refrigerator has a built in filter for the ice and water dispenser (which it does), then I will choose that over the faucet every time.  The problem with filtered water is, well, that you have to keep the filter clean.  It has an expiration date.  The filter in my fridge was long past its expiration.

When I pulled the filter from the refrigerator, I was pretty much disgusted.  The filter was as black as night (see pic).  No wonder the melted ice tasted so nasty.  Although the faucet water seems to be clean and tastes pretty well unfiltered, there are still a number of impurities in it.  Perhaps they don’t seem apparent when drinking one glass of water; but over time, having been passed through the filter, these impurities had built up to the point that they could be seen for what they truly are – a collection of deep, black, nasty sludge.  The filter could no longer remove these impurities from the water used to make ice and, in fact, the sludge collected in the filter was actually contaminating the water such that it was dirtier coming out of the filter than it was going into the filter.  Absolutely gross, man.

Our lives are a lot like the water in my town.  We often seem to be very clean in the way we act, and for the most part we behave ourselves, and we may even be a pleasant sort of folk.  In fact, there are times when there is much “good” that is done by us.  Why should anyone complain about us?  Clearly any impurities that may exist are small, irrelevant, and shouldn’t too negatively impact us.  Unfortunately, the problem is that those impurities do exist.  Jesus says in Matthew 15:19-20 that “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.”  The impurities inside that we hide and keep secret from those around us still defile us – we just don’t notice it so much.  We are not as pure a people as we may think and ultimately what is on the inside must eventually come to the outside.  And just like my filter when it has past its expiration date, those impurities can collect and become a much bigger problem.  That is when we see the dark sludge of our humanity all to clearly.  We might try to hide the impurities, but they are there and they are polluting us even when we don’t realize it.

Fortunately, there is filter within us – the Holy Spirit.  In John 4, Jesus told the woman at the well that he would give her water that would be a well springing up within her, leading to eternal life.  John goes on to say that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit.  Later, at the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7, Jesus said this river of water springing up from their heart would be “living” water.  The fact that it would be living water was significant to the Jews.  Many of their religious rituals required cleansing with water from a living, flowing source such as a river or stream – not a stagnant source such as a pond.  Living water cleansed and purified because it was alive and flowing and clean.  It was symbolic of the fact that the process of purifying ourselves was continual and required constant renewal.  In addition, the Jews understood from the practice of Judaism what “living water” meant as it related to the Feast of Tabernacles.   This feast was a time in which they celebrated living water.  The Feast of Tabernacles commemorated the time when Israel wandered in the desert, being protected by and provided for miraculously by God.  This included the miraculous provision of life-giving water.  To celebrate this, every day during this 7 day feast, the priests would march from the temple down to the Pool of Siloam, collect “living water” from that pool, carry it back up to the temple, and pour it out as a “libation” offering. 

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, he gives us the Holy Spirit to live within us.  The Holy Spirit becomes our living water, flowing from our heart, keeping us clean and filtered like a fresh water filter that never goes bad.  We still have these impurities within us all the time and need a constant renewing, but the Holy Spirit continually filters and cleanses us so that we remain clean and fresh as water straight from the refrigerator. 

And to beat it all, we don’t have to worry about the Holy Spirit getting all yucky because he is clogged up from filtering out our impurities.  Best. Filter. Ever.