The Christian Citizen and His Responsibility

The Christian Citizen and His Responsibility (1 Timothy 2:1-4)

We have lived through a historic week in America. We now have a President-elect who will lead the country for the next four years. As of last Wednesday, it really doesn't matter whether Senator Obama was your choice or mine. He became the President-elect. The position he will fill beginning January 20 demands that we give him our respect.

We still have freedom to disagree with his policies. It's still our privilege and responsibility to communicate with him, our senators and representatives to let them know what we think about those policies. It's also our responsibility and privilege to pray for him and his family and those who will serve around him. Whether we agree his election or understand why our country elected him is irrelevant. What we know about God trumps all that we don't understand.

We know that God is sovereign. We trust Him even if we don't trust most politicians. We have confidence in God's power to preserve and protect us regardless of election outcomes. We obey the instruction of Scripture even when we have little confidence in most of those who run for office. Most of them do not serve well and don't deserve our trust. Because we know God is all-wise and all-powerful, we're protected from cynicism even when we don't trust those who represent us.

Scripture tells us our responsibility as citizens. We're to pray for those who are in authority. So, we'll pray for Senator Obama. We'll pray for his safety and the safety of his family. You and I should pray that God will give him wisdom beyond his own. We should pray that someone near him will influence him with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I'm going to choose not to believe everything the liberal media says about him. I'm also not going to believe everything conservative hate mongers tell me. No one else is going to do my thinking for me; I'll do my own and hope I'm somewhere near accurate in that thinking. None of us should allow someone else to do our thinking for us.

I love my country, but I know it's far from perfect. By God's grace, we live in a place where our freedom to hold our own opinions and voice those opinions is the law of the land. Also by God's grace, we're citizens of another kingdom that is eternal, equitable and engaged in work that is far more important than who lives in the White House.

All of us still have the same responsibilities today that we had last Tuesday. We still have work to do as Christians and as citizens, and we'll need to do all that work well. I believe that's all God asks of us. -- John Strain is our weekend Freedom Fighter contributor and Senior Pastor First Baptist Toms River

God's WORD for YOU: Proverbs 8; Jeremiah 43-45; Hebrews 5

Think About This: Waiting for God means...readiness for any command; that sense of perpetual suspense which listens for the word in order that it may be immediately obeyed. Those who wait for God are pilgrim souls that have no tie that will hold them when the definite command is issued; no prejudices that will paralyze their effort when in some strange coming of the light they are commanded to take a pathway entirely different to that which was theirs before; having no interests either temporal or eternal, either material or mental or spiritual, that will conflict with the will of God when that will is made known.-- G. Campbell Morgan