"Now is the time for the church."
I thought of how God's very body has been leaning on the government, believing a society of morals and Truth could be sustained by implementing laws and procedures that enforced our stance on Life, Family, the Economy and Foreign Affairs.
It is not our governments role to sustain the value of human life. It is not our governments role to oversee the needs of the people. It is ours. It is time for the body of Christ to get down on its hands and kees with the poor - to give hope to individuals struggling with finances, to show a pregnant mother the love and encouragement she needs to raise her child, and to come up with the very solutions for our troops AND the people of the countries they are in.
Regardless of whether you are celebrating the elections, discouraged by their outcome, or entirely indifferent, as the Body of Christ our role remains the same: to love God and love our neighbor. Perhaps, the best way to do that is not to fight within the governmental halls for laws, but to serve, to give, and to do it because of Christ in us, THE very HOPE of Glory.
I met a young man recently who asked me if I was a Christian one day. I told him I was and he said, "So then does your Church like gay people?"
How was I to answer? Deep in my heart I was screaming, "Yes! Of course! You, too, are a child of God!" But how would he be treated in the halls of a church? Would those words become poison as he wasn't accepted or loved through His relationship with God?
Another woman asked me about voting recently. As I shared my stance on abortion particularly she, too, asked if I was a Christian. When I said yes she responded, "Oh, yeah, abortion is a big issue for you guys." I would like to say her voice communicated some endearing sentiment, but it very cleary did not. The tension was thick.
In each of these situations I longed to share with them the love of God, pure, unhindered, without favoritism or exception. I longed to have them feel God in their hearts. I longed to tell them that they would not be rejected, left, forsaken by God or His people.
Today is the day for the Church to live out what Christ showed us is love and justice. To help the poor. To feed the hungry. To stand with the oppressed. To show the world that the closer we get to apathy and the further we get from Truth, the worse off we will be.
Dan Haseltine, founder of Blood:Water Mission, when talking about the work in Africa, said, "Transforming a community from a hopeless land of funerals into a place of hope and life is hard work, and it's work that cannot happen without real people making coices that reflect a worldview informed by the life of Jesus Christ."
I think we could say, "Transforming our community from a land of apathy and selfishness into a place of life will be hard work, but it is work that will happen as we live reflecting the life of Jesus Christ."
Today the world remains in His fingertips unable to ever be removed. I pray this next four years will be ones of deep love and commitment by Christ's followers towards those in desperate need of love.
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