This past Tuesday was election day for our city commissioners, and it was another depressing low turnout. The newspaper touted it as the third highest turnout since 2004, but when you consider how bad it usually is, this is nothing to brag about. Out of 71,961 registered voters in the City of Gainesville, only 12,172 bothered to vote for a city commissioner in the At-large race. Another 947 voted in the Republican Primary and/or the District 1 race but opted out of voting for an At-large candidate.
In spite of my disappointment in my fellow citizens, people do have the right to opt out and let a small minority choose for them. It may be wrong, or it may be ignorance, but God makes us free to make bad choices. We will have to answer to Him for them someday, but for now we have the Grace to make that call.
What if we weren't free to do that? What if not voting were a punishable crime? Then your obedience would be under the law. There would be no virtue in it.
What about any other act that we deem to be a good and moral thing to do? What about charity? Many Christians practice tithing, although most don't. There is no penalty under the law for not tithing. Should the church be given the power to tax? If it were, it would no longer be the church. It would be a man-made kingdom that was masquerading as the Kingdom of God.
This is what I thought about when I heard the President say that it was his faith in Jesus that compelled him to want to raise taxes on the rich. I shuddered. It was not only that I thought it was a bastardization of Biblical principles that made me cringe. It was the lack of Christians calling him out on it. Yes, there were comparisons like, "George Bush caught grief for letting his faith guide him in matters of state." But that is mere hypocrisy. What the President is declaring is heresy.
God does not force us to be moral. But He does define morality. The President is trying to do both when he defines morality as taking even more of a few people's money to spend it on a giant, onerous, bankrupt bureaucracy, he forces them to do so, AND tells us that Jesus says so.
In many of our workplaces, we are not allowed to talk about Jesus. But if you are the President and you are trying to get re-elected, you can use His Name like a club. There is truly no hope in our system of government apart from prayer.
"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12
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ReplyDeleteThere should be no surprise in christians' lack of challenging B.O. since they don't challenge anyone for anything anymore. The organization has become full of relativism. Big preacher in Texas says he doesn't know if Jesus is the only way or if he even knows what he believes, yet his organization is the fastest-growing in the country. Why would you be surprised, Don?
ReplyDelete"...it would no longer be the church. It would be a man-made kingdom that was masquerading as the Kingdom of God." I couldn't have made a more adequate description of our current religious situation, in this country especially. B.O. knows this and uses it to his advantage to try and justify his actions; simple politics.
"There is truly no hope for our system of government apart from prayer."
ReplyDeleteI don't believe anyone will have a problem with that statement.
But why, then, are there so few pray-ers? We are truly blinded by the world. And our hands kept busy with its toys and toiling for more toys and the maintenance of those toys.
dkooj, you speak truth. Discouraged, disappointed truth, but truth nontheless. I hope it drives you to your knees and you speak just as eloquently to the only One who can bring beauty from ashes.
Forever His Girl, that is perhaps the most beautiful thing anyone has said to me in a long time. Thank you for the encouragement. Truth is sometimes ugly, and few people want to look at it when it makes them uncomfortable, for fear of seeming wrong. Fewer will actually point it out. But we are all wrong, in a sense, if there is only One right and true. My prayer has been for people to figure that out before the end. Thank you again.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised that there is so much luke warmness and relativism and corruption. I just thought that SOMEBODY with stature would say SOMETHING. Perhaps it is those of us who live in relative obscurity, who have little to lose, who are willing to speak up. I have no 501c3 status to protect, nor congregation nor deacons to threaten me. All I have is my good name, and all that really matters is my reputation before God.
ReplyDeleteDon, it is frightening that someone could think so much along the same lines as I do. How do you get away with saying these things and not have all the Prayer Partners on this list drop you like a hot coal? Or is their lack of response, in effect, the act of dropping?
ReplyDeleteDo you live in Gainesville? I am fairly well known around here, and I have made it a practice to use my real identity when posting. It has cost me some business once in awhile. And when I ran for mayor in 2010, I'm sure it hurt me. As far as prayer partners are concerned, I can just hope that they want revival. We can still pray together without anyone else sticking their name on it. I am not even running this operation. I am just the noisy one. :) I try to be on good terms with people personally. But sometimes this is harder than at others.
ReplyDeleteI lived in Gainesville, but I haven't for several years. We have met through your son; I was monitoring the election when you ran for mayor. I'm not using my real name since I used to live there, and not many people shared my views on things, which, oddly enough, are similar to your own. Regardless, I pray G'ville churches manage to find revival. However, you need to realize something is dead before attempting "reviving" it, and most churches go by the name of being alive...
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