political parties

Happy Birthday, ‘Murica!

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / 2 Comments

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“The nation whose True God is the Eternal is truly blessed;
    fortunate are all whom He chooses to inherit His legacy” (Psalm 33:12, The Voice).

Well, America is 239 years old today. And she doesn’t look a day over 190. Tops.

Today is the day we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, which said that we would no longer be colonies of Great Britain, but that we would indeed be the United States of America.

Today is a good day to remember all the freedoms that we normally take for granted.

The freedom to worship as you choose? Or not to worship at all? Don’t take that for granted.

The freedom to live as you choose? Don’t take that for granted either.

The freedom to disagree with each other (and hopefully be civil about it) and to even disagree with the powers that be? Definitely do not take that one for granted.

Many have fought and died for your freedoms. People through the ages have sacrificed greatly so that they could come to this great land of opportunity to find new lives here.

Is America perfect? Of course not.

Does she have a lot in her past to be ashamed of? Yes.

Does she also have a lot in her past to be proud of? Absolutely.

Remember this — as believers, we are ultimately not citizens of America (or any other country). We are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven. When all other kingdoms have fallen (including the one under the red, white, and blue flag), this Kingdom will stand.

Your ultimate allegiance isn’t to a flag or to a president or to a political party or to an ideal.

Your ultimate allegiance is to a King and a Kingdom. to Jesus Christ as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Now go be patriotic and eat lots of grilled meats and drink lots of carbonated beverages!

“All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba’s children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel-uncontaminated by cultural junk, political wreckage, and the complex hypocrisies of a bullying religion” (Brennan Manning).

A Disciple

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what being a disciple of Christ really looks like. I think it looks like more than someone who is a fan of Jesus, who likes Him on facebook. It’s more than someone who goes to church every Sunday and reads the Bible every now and then.

Back in the day, if you wanted to be a disciple of a rabbi, you would literally leave your family and your job and go live with the rabbi. You would eat your meals when he ate his, go wherever he went, and sit at his feet and hang on every word he spoke. You would try to become just like the rabbi you were a disciple of.

That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. You leave everything else behind and immerse yourself in Jesus’ words. You spend as much time with Him in His Word and in prayer as it takes. Which honestly is a lot more than I typically spend in either of those things. More than knowing about Jesus, you want to know Him and follow Him.

A disciple is someone who belongs to Jesus. Oswald Chambers put it best when he said, “If any man come to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his life also, he cannot be My disciple,” not, he cannot be good and upright, but, he cannot be one over whom Jesus writes the word “Mine.” Any one of the relationships Our Lord mentions can compete with our relationship with Him. I may prefer to belong to my mother, or to my wife, or to myself, but if that is the case, then, says Jesus, you cannot be My disciple. This does not mean I will not be saved, but it does mean that I cannot be ‘His.'”

A disciple is willing to stand up to both political parties and hold them both accountable to what the Word of God says. Not what FoxNews or CNN or MSNBC say, but what God in Scripture has already said. A disciple is willing to stand up for the unpopular truths that will get him or her possibly ostracized and ridiculed and thought of as old-fashioned and narrow-minded and out of touch with reality.

If those are some of the qualifications of a disciple, then I’m not there yet. I still love my comfort way too much and I have too many allegiances and loyalties to people and things other than Jesus. Probably the majority of Christians, especially in America, would be in the same category.

Lord, make us disciples who are willing to forsake everything to follow You, no matter what.

Church and State and Everything in Between

/ Ragamuffingospelfan / Leave a comment

First of all, I’d like to state for the record that both Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi get on my nerves, so I guess that makes me an independent.

Tonight at Kairos, Mike Glenn spoke about politics and the Kingdom of God. Basically, he said we as the Church (in general) gave up faith in the power of the Gospel and traded in the role of prophet for the illusion of political access.

We thought that if we got “our” people into office and got “our” laws passed, things would get better. But you can only pass laws to keep people from hurting their neighbors. You can’t pass laws that make people love those neighbors.

I heard a great analogy tonight. Food doesn’t change the salt, but rather salt changes the food. In the same way, the world shouldn’t change believers, but believers should be the ones changing the world. We are called to be salt, and it only takes a little salt to make a big difference.

Why do we act surprised when lost people act like lost people? Are they the problem with this country? Is it dark because the darkness killed the light?

It’s dark because the light has failed. It’s dark not because believers have been too different from the world around them, but because we haven’t been different enough.

This made me think: some people are so good at blending in with the world that even Jesus won’t be able to recognize them when He comes back.

I’ll say it again that it’s not about taking back a country (that was never really ours to begin with), but advancing a Kingdom. Our hope doesn’t lie in a President, but in a coming King who will set all things right.

Do go and vote. That’s important. But at the same time don’t put your hopes for a better future into the hands of politicians, because that has never ended well.

Long after presidents and countries and politics are no more, Jesus will still reign as King and Lord over all. Long after political parties have bit the dust and governments have fallen, Jesus will still be in charge.

That’s where my hope lies.