An open letter to my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ: As we are on the verge of the first presidential debate for this election cycle, many are getting pumped up and ready to watch their guy/gal destroy the other person and “win”. I humbly ask you to think about this? Who will win the debate? Will good triumph over evil? Before we fill-in-the-blank with the name of our favorite candidate, let me rephrase the question. How is a “win” possible when we are divided in the Church? We are divided in the Body of Christ, brother against brother and sister against sister. Who wins when we lambast the other side more than we pray for them? Who wins when we don’t see that both sides have good and bad viewpoints? Who wins? Not the Body; not the great commission, not what our Lord and Savior died for - that does not win.
Can we agree to watch the debates without taking sides? Let us watch with discernment and wisdom that is given freely by God to all who ask for it. Let us set aside our preconceived ideas. When it comes time to vote, let us vote with love, not hate in our hearts. Let us sit before the Lord with peace in our hearts and let Him show us who to vote for or who not to vote for. There may not be one “right” answer because it’s about our personal relationship with God and who is control of our hearts, not who is sitting in the White House. Let us have compassion for people with views that are opposite of ours. Have love for them. Let us pray for all the candidates and our governing authorities and their families and their children.
If we really believe that judgment begins at the House of God, then what are we fighting about? We should be repenting, on bended knees, on our faces, crying out to our Savior, all of us, not just some of us. We should pray the corporate prayer in the book of Daniel found in Chapter 9. We have no cause to be angry, except maybe at ourselves; we are only reaping what we have sown. The things that are taking place in our country are the result of what we, the Body of Christ, have poured, or not poured, into it. We haven’t been the light, we haven’t been salt, we haven’t been love. But there is good news: this can be our finest hour, our greatest hour. We can choose to lay down our hate, lay down our rage, lay down our sense of justice and revenge, lay down our pride and arrogance. We can lay down our political banners and pick up the only banner that truly matters – the banner of the Party of the Lamb.
We can lay down our burdens at the Cross of Christ. Lay down our fears. Lay down our anger. Lay down our hate. Let God fight our battles instead of trying to do it through a manmade system that was built on rebellion and is sure to fail and will eventually crumble. Jesus said in Matthew 24:35, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will never pass away”.
Bottom line: We should love. We should show love; we should be love as He is love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines love with some words that are hard to hear. But we really need to hear them right now and let them soak in. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” We can only love like this through the power of the Holy Spirit, not in our own strength.
Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him while He is near.” Let us repent of our arrogance, pride and rage and lift high the banner of the Party of the Lamb. Then we can truly be Stronger Together, united as one Body of Christ, and pray that God will Make America Great Again.
