Seeking peace

Eight years ago I remember struggling.  I was so fearful of Obama being president.  I knew Obama would be a terrible president.  Knowing what I did about his character, I was sure he would lead this country away from good, down an ever deepening chasm of darkness.  I’d say that I was correct in that assessment.  But I was also wrong.  I voted for McCain and when it was a blow out I felt like my vote did not count.  Mostly though I felt shame for voting for one of the absolute biggest RINOs.

The last eight years have been trying in many ways.  Evil in this country and in the world has grown.  These last few years have seen moral things called immoral and immoral things called moral.  I know that has been happening for a long time, but it has been very in your face recently.  So what is a person to do?  It all comes down to the choices we make.  Seek what is good and true and when you find it, grab it and hold on.  That is what I will be doing.  No matter who wins this election and the trials that tomorrow brings; I’ll do what God commands me to do.  It isn’t about saving this county, it’s about saving souls.

Why I can’t vote for Clinton or Trump, and neither can you

Before you brandish pitchforks, let’s put some qualifiers on this.  This isn’t a Never Trump thing, nor is it a Never Hillary thing, this is an Always God thing.  Therefore, I’m not speaking to everyone, just those who believe the Bible to be the word of God.  If you don’t believe that, then this doesn’t really apply to you.  Second, if you are a new christian, then this also doesn’t apply to you, maturity and understanding will occur with time; and with politics, even the best of us have difficulty telling right from wrong.  You are more than welcome to read this if you are seeking truth, but unless you’ve been a christian for a while, this isn’t directed at you.

Brothers, sisters, let us think through what God would have us to do, or not do come this Tuesday.  We are truly blessed to be citizens of a country that was based on the word of God.  No county aside from Israel has been so richly blessed as our own; part of this blessing is the ability to vote.  Many countries are ruled by the few elite at the expense of all they govern.  Those people don’t get to pick what the government can do or even who even runs their governments.  We as Americans get to make that decision every two years!  Just think of it; every two years we could replace every single person in the House of Representatives.  Tuesday we could vote in almost a whole new group of people to represent us, and two years from now, we could do it all again.  This is a great blessing we have been given, but it’s also a responsibility.  We are not slaves, bound to our rulers, without a say in the affairs of our life.  In fact, you could say that we, the citizens of this country are the rulers and our representatives in government are our servants.  For all this power we have allowed ourselves to become timid and weak.  We, who believe that the God of all creation is on our side, and if God be for us, who can be against; are looking to men to save us.  Wicked ones at that!

I’m sure I’ve already offended some for suggesting that their presidential candidate is wicked.  No one is perfect, or how can I judge them you might say.  You would be right in saying that no one is perfect.  Jesus is the only one who has ever walked this planet without sinning.  That is precisely why each and everyone of us needs the grace and forgiveness that God offers us.  We all come to him broken and we all continue to sin; I’ve never known any christian that lived perfectly after being saved,  but we are a new creation after our salvation and our lives will reflect that.  As for judging, God commands us to judge.  While we are to love each other as well as sinners, but we are to abhor sin.  How can we abhor something we can not define.  You can’t live without making judgements.  Judgement basically means making a choice.  Deciding what clothes to wear involves judging.  Cooking and eating food involves judging.  You literally cannot live without making judgements.  That is not the type of judgements we are talking about though, we are talking about judgments of life and death, right and wrong, good and evil.  That’s a little bit harder than deciding to wear the red shirt or the blue shirt today.  Fortunately, God give us a guide to know all this, we just have to follow it.  Since we can now agree that we have a right to judge, we should figure out how to go about that.  Only God is able to judge hearts and motives, so we are commanded to judge works.  Works are simply the actions that we take.  Let us find some actions and figure out how they line up with what God says.

How about we start with an easy one, how about murder.  That’s easy right?  What goes on in someone else’s marriage or the many “inconsistencies” of someone’s memory might be hard to judge, but murder?  God surly wouldn’t want his people to vote for a murderer.  And to be fair, I am not speaking about anyone who has committed murder, but has since been saved and served their time in prison.  What is murder?  Murder is taking of a life, but it is more than just that.  If someone breaks into your home, you can kill them without it being murder.  That person meant you harm and you defended yourself and your family by taking their life.  You could cause a car accident and take someone’s life.  That would be a horrible accident, but there would be no forethought or malice for it to be a murder.  On the other hand, if you were to say, pay a person to kill, you are a murderer.  Even though you yourself aren’t the one taking someone’s life, you are still responsible for it.  Everyone gets this right?  A willful choice to take an innocent person’s life makes you a murderer.  So have Trump or Clinton murdered anyone?  Have I? Have you?

Did you know that the US has murdered more people than Stalin?  Did you know that we have murdered about the same number of people as Hitler did?  I’ll grant you that we haven’t murdered as many as Mao, but we aren’t done yet.  These are three of the worst individuals in history, how should we judge ourselves?  But wait, you say we haven’t murdered that many people?  I wish that were true, but since 1973 we have committed over 50 million abortions in this country.  If you’re offended or trying to justify yourself, you need to take a hard look at yourself.  The second book of the bible has a law commanding any who kill an unborn child to be put to death.  I honestly don’t know how christians didn’t march on Washington DC in 73, or at least make their own political party and refuse to vote for any other party.  Seriously, why have we not done that?  Clinton won the Margaret Sanger award for pete’s sake.  Margaret Sanger, if you don’t know, is the the woman who founded Planned Parenthood; the biggest abortion provider in the whole county.  Clinton was happy to receive that award, she admires Sanger.  Clinton has probably done more than anyone in recent history to ensure we continue the slaughter of babies.  She is a murderer.  Trump has paid people to make sure abortions are done, Clinton being one of them.  So he also is a murderer.

That leave the questions of am I a murderer and are you one.  This is a harder question for me to answer, but it is one that is much more important.  I was born into this world years after this decision was made.  I was paying taxes before I ever learned that my taxes went to pay for abortion.  It isn’t easy to look at yourself, and know that willingly or not, you have helped to kill innocent little babies.  Trump and Clinton both claim to be christian.  They blaspheme God to call themselves his child while being unrepentant sinners.  The bible tells me to turn away from people such as them.  I have not given money to either of these people, but if I give my vote to one of them, I will become a murderer.  I still don’t know who I am voting for on Tuesday.  I know that I can not vote for Trump nor Clinton, and brothers, sisters, neither can you.