Tag Destiny

The God Over All Government

Todd R 2 Comments

We’d all like to live under a better government, but the only perfect, Godly government we’ll ever see is a monarchy under Jesus in heaven.  Until then, like it or not, we all have to live under imperfect governments.  We hope and pray for our government to be more Godly, more like the perfect government, and we should, as Paul wrote:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” – 1 Tim 2:1-2

In addition to praying, there are many ways we try to influence our government.  In a democracy, we can seek to do this: by voting, by contributing money to political candidates, by working on a candidate’s campaign, by donating to lobbying organizations, by convincing others to vote differently, etc.  God may lead different people to participate politically in any of these ways, not at all, or in other ways.

However, none of these actions will be effective unless God is behind them, and the outcome we seek is what He also wants.  Only He can decide what are the right actions for us to take, and only He can decide which outcomes are best for His people, who He seeks to make perfectly Godly by His own definition of the word.  His purposes are to purify His people for eternity, not to bring about a perfect government in this broken world.  His purposes may not be our purposes, and where our influence is limited, His is unlimited.  Proverbs 21:1 tells us:

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;
            he turns it wherever he will.”

Therefore, regardless of whether we think our government is Godly, our government is actually Godly in one way: that He is in charge behind the scenes regardless of how it looks to us.

There are a couple of verses in the book of Ezra that acknowledge this, but first just a little background.  Ezra was a priest and scribe who likely wrote the Old Testament book bearing his name, in addition to Nehemiah, 1 and 2 Chronicles, and possibly Psalm 119.  It is also thought that he helped compile the Old Testament canon (the list of which books do and don’t belong).

Ezra lived at the end of the Babylonian captivity of the nation of Judah, an exile that ended not because of the vigorous efforts of Judah to break free, but because God used foreign kings to free them, and later to pay for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.

After returning to their own land, the people of Judah were thankful for King Cyrus and King Darius, but ultimately, they knew God was behind it, and they determined to worship only Him, not Cyrus, Darius, or any other gods or men.  Ezra 6:22 says:

“And they kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread seven days with joy, for the LORD had made them joyful and had turned the heart of the king of Assyria to them, so that he aided them in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel.”

Ezra repeats the point in Ezra 7:27, referencing the principle from Proverbs 21:1 –

“Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem”

Our government is always in God’s hands, and He can do whatever He wills with it.  Pray that He will use it to bless God’s people, but also praise Him for all the benefits we may have, even under a hostile government.  Remember that God was behind Israel’s defeat by the Assyrians and Judah’s by Babylon, not just the return from exile.  It is by worshipping only God, not particular people or forms of government, that God’s people find their joy and peace.

“The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD;           
he turns it wherever he will.”

For God So Loved the World

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If you asked a random non-Christian to cite a Bible verse, not quote, but just cite a chapter and verse, there’s a good chance they’d say John 3:16.  It’s as good a summary of the gospel as one verse can provide, and it’s one of the verses I’ve quoted the most on this blog.  In response to a reader suggestion, I’ve figured out what Bible verses I’ve used the most and am writing a series about those verses.  Today’s post is #3 of the series, covering the verse quoted the 3rd least out of the 10 most quoted:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Reading back over the posts where this verse has appeared, I see three ideas I tried to share: what God’s love means for us, what love has to do with “eternal life”, and what “world” God loves.

The first idea is that we would all be eternally lost if not for God’s love.  Since we all fall short of God’s standards, what we deserve is to be banished from God’s presence forever.  In His holiness, He can’t be near us, and in His justice, He must judge our sins.  However, Romans 5:8 tells us: “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Without God’s love we would always be sinners, but because of His love, we have a way back to a right relationship with our God.  In one post here, I wrote “Christianity is not judgement, but the only way of escape from it.”

Second, what is this “eternal life” that we can have because God loves us?  I’ve written that “If man had not rejected love, Christianity wouldn’t be necessary; but also, if Christianity does not restore mankind to agape love, it’s pointless.”  When we are brought back into a right relationship with God, it puts us on an inevitable course toward a new world where we will all love perfectly, as Jesus loved perfectly.  Unless heaven is going to be full of loving people, it’s not going to be the perfect place that God is preparing for us.  So, “eternal life”, given to us because of God’s love, is our future, perfect selves living with God for eternity.  The possibility of this is so amazing that God decided it was worth dying for!

Last, I’ve also written that “when I’m struggling to face the world as I see it, I ask about [John] 3:16, ‘Exactly which world did Jesus love enough to die for?’  The answer is this one.  The world He died for is the one where sex, anger, bitter tribalism, and political partisanship sells.  The one with a lot of sarcastic, angry, and bitter people.  The one with a lot of people who are more like us than we’d usually like to admit.”  God didn’t love a world full of His people because without His love, He would have no people.  He loved a world full of sinners, as Romans 5:8 told us.  If God had decided that this world was hopelessly lost, He wouldn’t have bothered to send Jesus to give it hope.

This is the same world that God calls us to love, and to bring hope in the name of Jesus.  While we are in this world, God is already making us like Him, more loving, and in sharing that love with others we share a hope in a world where love is all there is.

So, remember, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Do You Want a Perfect Government?

Todd R 1 Comment

Immediately after beginning His public ministry with His baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil three times.  One of those temptations went like this:

“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.  If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.”” – Luke 4:5-7

As you probably know, Jesus did not succumb to this temptation but suppose Jesus had decided to take authority over all the nations of the world in this way. He would have decisions to make.  What form of government would He choose for “all the kingdoms of the world”?  There are so many to choose from, and certainly He’d have the wisdom to pick the right one, right?

Here in the United States, technically a federal constitutional republic, people often just call it a democracy.  For many, it’s a good form of government, and as Winston Churchill said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”.  Churchill was saying that no system of government is perfect, but regardless we should choose the best.  The best available option is what we should aim for, right?

However, Jesus refused to succumb to the temptation of accepting authority over the imperfect nations from the devil (and under the devil), and we should be very thankful He did.  To us, it seemed like a very enticing offer, but from Jesus’ perspective, was it as attractive?  Was it attractive at all?  How does the Bible describe God’s attitude toward the world’s nations that Jesus was tempted to rule?

In Psalm 2:4, Jesus “laughs” at all the worldly kingdoms and “holds them in derision”.  In that Psalm, He sees all of mankind’s attempts to govern themselves as laughable!  Isaiah 40:17 perhaps takes this even further:

“All the nations are as nothing before him,
            they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.”

From His perspective, “all the nations” are “less than nothing and emptiness.”  Why rule these kingdoms that are laughable and empty?  Kingdoms that are infinitely less than perfect?  Therefore, Jesus wasn’t overcome by the devil’s temptation because His objective was a perfect kingdom made up of perfect people.  Being offered “all the kingdoms of the world” was not at all attractive to Him under those circumstances.

If it wasn’t tempting to Him, why should we be tempted by it?  Why is worldly power so attractive to us, and why do we sometimes act like a perfect government can exist in this world?

We might act like this because we believe the perfect system can overcome the imperfections in each person’s heart.  Therefore, we focus on the political system; the form of government instead of the nature of its people.  However, all the power of earthly kingdoms can’t heal the human heart; only God’s can.  Any system made up of imperfect people is inevitably imperfect.  Jesus’ mission was to create a new people willing and able to live in a perfect kingdom absolutely ruled by Him.  Perfection can be achieved no other way.

Fortunately for us, instead of falling for the devil’s temptation in the desert and forming an imperfect government of imperfect people, Jesus’ response was:

“And Jesus answered him, “It is written,
             “‘You shall worship the Lord your God,
                        and him only shall you serve.’”” – Luke 4:8

Whatever system of government we live under, that government is temporary and will inevitably be abolished by the kingdom of God that already should rule in His people’s hearts.  Therefore, “worship the Lord your God” and pray for the culmination of His kingdom, while faithfully loving God and loving our neighbor, regardless of our form of government.  God’s rule of love is relevant everywhere and will outlast all the kingdoms of this earth, proving each of them to be “less than nothing and emptiness.”

Jesus knew what He was doing when rejecting the world’s kingdoms and He wants us to follow His example.

A Surprising Conversion: History for January 6

Todd R 3 Comments

The following is quoted from Warren Wiersbe’s Be Alive commentary on John 3:14.

“On January 6, 1850, a snowstorm almost crippled the city of Colchester, England, and a teenage boy was unable to get to the church he usually attended. So he made his way to a nearby Primitive Methodist chapel, where an ill-prepared layman was substituting for the absent preacher. His text was Isaiah 45:22 – “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” For many months this young teenager had been miserable and under deep conviction, but though he had been reared in church (both his father and grandfather were preachers), he did not have the assurance of salvation.

The unprepared substitute minister did not have much to say, so he kept repeating the text. “A man need not go to college to learn to look,” he shouted. “Anyone can look—a child can look!” About that time, he saw the visitor sitting to one side, and he pointed at him and said, “Young man, you look very miserable. Young man, look to Jesus Christ!” The young man did look by faith, and that was how the great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon was converted.”[1]

[1] Wiersbe, Warren.  Be Alive (John 1-12) (1986).  P. 55.

Forgetting What Lies Behind

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Paul wrote his letter to the Philippians from a Roman jail, to encourage them to continue forward in the faith.  In it, he wrote: “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made [Christs righteousness] my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”[1]

In Paul’s life, “what lies behind” includes overseeing the stoning of Stephen recorded in Acts 7:57-58, and “ravaging the church, and entering house after house, [dragging] off men and women and committ[ing] them to prison.”[2]  We all have different shameful things in our past, but God forgets them.  His purpose is to always make us more like Christ, even when we struggle to move forward.  The prize is worth it, therefore we “press on toward the goal,” even if our current situation is discouraging and seems hopeless.

After all, Paul knew that even prison was temporary and God could wash away all the sins of his past, present, and future to make him righteous like Christ.

[1] Philippians 3:13-14
[2] Acts 8:3