It would seem to me that none of us as growing and developing followers of Jesus Christ find election years to be anything other than frustrating. One thing that I believe makes us frustrated is our hope to some place find a satisfactory political home or even a satisfactory candidate. As followers of Jesus Christ that just is not possible. We have adopted a standard, values and laws that the rest of the world just does not ascribe to. Adding to that tension is the reality that our basis for our standards and values is not open to compromise. We have those standards and values by revelation and commandment not by a soft and fluid act of consensus. As followers of Jesus Christ we find ourselves truly as outsiders within our society. This is the sense of what we find in Hebrews:
Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
When we add to this the bias with which we were raised and trained it only adds to the frustration of attempting to arrange all these ideas and responsibilities into a consistent and comfortable package. It certainly does not help that in recent years (the last thirty years) many Christian leaders have attempted to harmonize the followers of Jesus Christ into a political unit as though we were intended to be some third wing of political power.
We are not a political action group. We are the “sons of God”. We are here as a “peculiar” people. Our place and power does rest in political action but rather in our being the “Ambassadors of Christ”. Gospel action and representation of God is our business and it was never intended to find its traction in politics.
Admittedly, it is difficult to keep our citizen responsibilities and our Christian responsibilities separate but it is our duty to do so. And it is also clear that our citizen responsibilities must be driven by our Christian values. It helped me today to read Psalm 46, you may find it equally helpful and encouraging.
