From the Preacher’s Pen…
Over the next few days, we will learn just who will lead the United States for the next four years. Will that be the one that openly advocates Christians discarding their faith in order to accept sin as normal and okay? Or will it be the one that makes rash decisions and uses a lot of foul language? Yes, there’s a lot more to the choices and much of it is bad anyway you look at it.
Over the next few days, we will learn just who will lead the United States for the next four years. Will that be the one that openly advocates Christians discarding their faith in order to accept sin as normal and okay? Or will it be the one that makes rash decisions and uses a lot of foul language? Yes, there’s a lot more to the choices and much of it is bad anyway you look at it.
As Christians, we have a responsibility to choose and choose wisely. Having input into the godliness or ungodliness of our nation is a sobering duty with eternal consequences. Go back and read the prophets’ descriptions of Israel, what they believed and how they acted before God destroyed them. It is truly frightening to think that we could be held responsible for a similar failure of our nation!
So how should Christians vote? The answer is found in much more than just a list of whose name to check on a ballot.
The answer is found in how we live, how we act and how we present ourselves to the world. Are we truly, as Jesus put it, the light and seasoning of the world?
Consider for a moment just how and why each of us should truly be…
A Classy Person
Have you noticed that there are some really classy people in this world? No, I don’t mean those that dress in thousand dollar outfits, wear expensive jewelry and the finest makeup.
Many years ago I had a good friend that very much looked the part of an old Texas rancher. Well, he’d grown up ranching and still ranched but somehow there was something more to him. He generally wore blue jeans, a western style shirt with cowboy boots and hat. But they were somehow always neat looking even when he’d been out working cattle; respectable looking even when covered in dust and sweat! Something about his appearance made an announcement of class.
No, it was not any kind of superior attitude and it was certainly never a look of wealth, though he was an incredibly wealthy and generous man. Looking at him you could just see a head held high and class. Talking to him you got to know a man that humbly loved the Lord and went out of his way to support and be a part of the Lord’s work anytime, anywhere.
Think about actions in people’s lives. Have you ever had someone lower their voice to whisper to you a dirty joke or make some tasteless comment about another person? Somehow that person just seems a little slimy… a person truly lacking in class.
Have you ever noticed a person that dresses, acts, walks, talks like someone they are not just to impress, just to make others believe that they are something or someone they are not? Were you impressed? Were you fooled?
Now think about the spiritual side of this lesson. As a Christian who are you really?
Well, you may have been a nice worldly person. You made have been religious in your own way (remember Paul’s “compliment” to the very religious pagans of Athens in Acts 17?). On the other hand, you might have been a thief, murderer, addict or something similar. Paul gives a list in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 (one of many in Scripture) and reminds Christians (verse 11) that “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.”
Perhaps you recall how Peter identifies the children of God: “But you are a chosen family, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). And Peter goes on to remind us: “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10).
Yes, even royalty sometimes flaunt their position, their status in how they dress and act. But the truly classy ones just impress us with their humble attitude of true class.
Are YOU a classy person? Would anyone looking at you confuse you with, say, a prostitute or the lowlife of society? (That’s actually part of Paul’s lesson to Christian women in 1 Corinthians.) Would someone see you and think that in word and actions you were just another one of the heathens in town. (Also part of Paul’s lesson to Christian men in Corinth!)
So, to be practical, how exactly would a child of the King of Kings decide to support the murder of babies up to the minute of birth as a person’s “right?”
Or does your vote, your actions, your dress, your words reflect a thoughtful, loving child of God? Do people see someone that is worth knowing in how you act, what you say and how you live? Are you the light of the world?
If not, why not? Think about it, are you a classy person? Are you a child of the King?
— Lester P. Bagley
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