Politics and Christianity
It doesn’t take much to realize what is going on in our world; to feel the unrest, to hear the verbal battles between people and deeply sense the hatred being spewed toward one another, especially Christians. It’s a sad commentary on the Church when so called believers are picking sides and throwing spears of contention into the arena. God help us.
If you have a social media account it’s hard to miss the barrage of comments back and forth filing posts and news feeds. It’s a grievous thing to witness. I’m not saying that we can’t disagree or that we should all vote one way. But when we say we are a Christian, there are certain things we need to remember when it comes to our interactions with other people no matter what the topic is.
Being a Christian comes with certain expectations. Our behaviors are referred to in Scripture as our “fruit”. Jesus said in Matthew 7:17, “A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.” Vs 20, “Yes you can identify a tree by the fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”
What we do and say is a telltale sign of what is in our hearts. Luke 6:45 says “A good man brings good things out of the good stored in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Before we are saved our hearts are full of evil thoughts and they translate into our actions. After salvation we are called to renew our minds with the Word of God thus changing our thoughts which changes our actions.
Does that mean Christians are perfect and never say or do the wrong thing? Nope! We should be growing all the time and slowly changing those old ways to correlate with Gods Word. The Holy Spirit will convict us if we make a mistake along the way. But when our behavior and words do not change we must question our own hearts.
During this season of elections and social unrest, what is really in people’s hearts has sadly come to the surface. Social media has made our opinions available to everyone. As much as we don’t want to believe this, no one cares what you or I think about anything. There is no shortage of opinions, we all have one about a variety of things.
I’ve learned this lesson the hard way, unless I’m asked for my opinion, I should keep it to myself. When someone posts on social media their opinion about something, they are not looking for our two cents worth. It’s their page and they can say what they like. If we don’t agree, that’s fine. We don’t have to. Keep scrolling. BUT deciding to jump on the band wagon and give our differing opinion is not necessary and unwanted. It often leads us down a rabbit hole of heated arguments where no one wins and friendships can be lost in cyberspace.
What I find most disturbing is when a so-called Believer will post a comment about one political candidate or another and that comment is steeped in hatred, division, malice and judgement. In this case their heart is being shown in their actions, they are bearing bad fruit. #ouch
Adhering to biblical standards requires us to DO as the Bible SAYS. 1 John 2:3-4, “And we can be sure that we know him if we obey his commandments. If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.” This doesn’t just apply to certain aspects of our lives but to EVERY aspect. We should strive to have everything we say and do follow the guidelines of Scripture.
God’s word tells us to love others AS He loves us. It also gives us the attributes of love. A few are…
1. It is patient (when someone thinks differently)
2. It is kind (when someone posts something rude or political we disagree with)
3. It endures every circumstance (even election years) #word
4. It is not proud (always trying to prove it is right)
You get the point. Just because we have a different opinion doesn’t give us the right to voice it or post it, if it is rude to another person, hateful, demeaning about a person or argumentative. It’s not anyone’s responsibility to judge the way another person thinks. If asked we can enter a discussion of topics to challenge one another and learn if both parties are willing. Scripture tells us to get the plank out of our own eye before trying to get the splinter out of someone else’s eye.
Confrontation cannot be successful without voice inflections, body language, and facial expressions. We misread people’s intentions when we only read what they say. If we are honest, we post our opinion to get other likeminded people to confirm we are right, then we feel good about our stance. Social media is not the place for debate. No one wins.
What we are supposed to do is pray. Prayer changes everything. God can only move when we pray not when we argue with people. I fear we don’t pray because we have more faith in voicing our opinion than we do in the effectiveness of prayer. #thathurt
Father help us to represent you well in all we say or do. Let our hearts conform to the tenants of your Word and not our own opinions. Help us to walk in love with those we may disagree with. Show us a better way Father, one of graciousness and humility. We pray your perfect will be accomplished in these Elections. We come against the spirits of darkness at work to sabotage your plan and to divide people over this. Bring us together even over our differences and show us the bigger picture in all that is going on. In Jesus name…