Even if you’re not from the United States, it seems everyone has heard of the political turmoil and divisiveness going on here. If you haven’t, it’s probably only because you have plenty of your own political problems, bad leadership, and maybe even dangerous people and circumstances.
Wanting A Perfect King When We Already Have One
Even in the best of times, we tend to place a lot of faith in human leaders, but this problem becomes even more prominent in the middle of election seasons with people campaigning for ruling power. Here in the U.S., we’ve heard and seen some pretty crazy things go down this last year.
Worst of all is that though we’ve had candidates running for office that seem to be complete disasters as far as their godliness, wisdom, and morals, we’ve had hundreds of thousands of people essentially place their faith in these leaders to effectively “save” us from our false “hells” and “make us great” or something.
While it’s super sad to see people who claim to follow Christ and honor God simply throw their wisdom and understanding to the side and throw their hopes and loyalties on party leaders who don’t even remotely resemble our God and his desires, it’s actually not all that surprising.
At the core of sinful human nature is a strong desire to be our own “god” of our lives and do whatever we please. And, rather than live lives of sacrifice and love for others, we tend to value our own safety and preservation of our selfish lives above all else. So, it’s no surprise (or shouldn’t be) that we tend to create false “gods” out of people who promise us our “freedoms” of selfish desires and our “protection” from anything that threatens us and our selfish lifestyles.
If some man or woman can flex against what we fear, they suddenly get all our faith. Never mind that Jesus already did that. We quickly show the shallowness of our beliefs in that reality and we place our faith in these lousy sinful man “kings”.
If there’s one thing we know from scripture, history, and human nature, it’s that these “kings” ultimately fail us and that we ultimately destroy ourselves when left to our own sinful natures.
However, we know something else too! And, it’s actually good news!
We have a king who is good and all powerful. He is both ruling on the throne of this world and active in every tiny moment of our lives.
A Reassuring Talk On A Refreshing Reality
I recently came across this talk given at a collegiate ministry gathering through a series of events. The political science professor in this video who gives this talk, from Iowa State University, had given a very helpful workshop on Christians in politics.
Afterwards, he mentioned he had given this talk about the Israelite nation desiring an earthly king and God deciding to grant them their wishes. As you may know, every earthly king utterly failed to be the king that God was and is for the people, and yet, God still uses these faulty rulers to play out his grand story and show him as the one true and good king that he is.
No matter what man does or doesn’t do, God is fully in control and nothing stops his good and loving plan for his people as their king. It’s a refreshing reality!
This is just one message out of a long series this ministry was doing earlier in the year, but there are both many very interesting and very encouraging statements in here for us in this time. So rather than rehash it all, I recommend you just watch it for yourself…
Then, I pray you find your rest and hope in the one true and good king who is already in power and that you’re a man who leads others to do the same in these difficult times.
https://vimeo.com/158580470
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