Lately I’ve been feeling a loneliness and longing for other people.
Maybe it’s because I took a job out of state. I have a new job in a good company. For 1/2 my week I come home to a big empty apartment in a new city where I know almost no one. It’s so different from what I’ve been experiencing the past ~20 years, with my wife and several children. It has made me do a lot of thinking about friendship and romance and the community of Jesus Christ.
Or maybe it’s something else entirely, because I’ve felt this way before. I’ve felt this way more than once.
I think we underestimate the tremendous disconnect that has happened between people as we try to live without Jesus Christ to varying degrees. As we live without following Christ to varying degrees there is a disconnect and a consequence. Jesus is the only mediator between us and God so as we snub him and disregard him for whatever reason we isolate ourselves from God.
Jesus Christ is also the mediator between man and man. He who holds all things together, and so does he not hold together all real loving relationships? We usually do not fully understand this and therefore we attempt often substitute in other relationships. When we do this we prevent and preempt Jesus from giving us access to others in the way that we crave.
Sometimes we assume we want sex, sometimes it’s self-serving social experiences, that supposedly fulfill (yet they are fleeting). Other times we seek King-like figures for our lives, who we hope will mediate everything good for us. Figures like clergy or presidential politicians.
We pour hopes into relationships or experiences that are unable to mediate what only Christ can mediate to and for us.
Jesus is the only real access we have to God and to one another. We can access one another in other ways, but those ways disappoint. At best, we offer and receive a humanistic self-centered form of love. Or at best it’s a pleasurable physical relationship yet lacks real love and insight into life.
But if we (Jesus followers) can learn to allow Jesus Christ to insert himself between us and others. And he will if we will allow him. Then we find the true satisfaction from and among others in our lives.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them,
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Adam: notice is the first paragraph of this declaration of independence the foundation of this new government is the assumption of separate but equal powers among the earth. The founders felt it was their right and duty to form a separate but equal government among and as one of the powers of the earth. The list of reasons are brilliant the maturity and integrity of these men seems to be impeccable. The logic and bravery of these men is supremely admirable.
BUT a desire to establish a government among the other powers of the earth is a dangerous thing. A motive and a line of logic that does not jive well with the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. This is the foundation of our government and it is not a thing of Jesus Christ. It is a motive with a foundation of of Satan. To pursue power among the powers of the earth is equivalent to budging our way at the table of the wicked principalities and powers in high places talked about in scripture (Eph 3:10, Eph 1:21, Rom 8:38). These men were tired of the persecution of the King of England and decided to violently push their way to the table of power that he was oppressing them from.
I love America I think it has the best form of government yet conceived on earth. Don’t get me wrong with this post, I believe our founding is truly a story of bravery and standing up to tyranny. But I cannot see the motives and logic of our founding when they declared independence and took up arms as something of Jesus Christ. I don’t believe that they were being led of the Holy Spirit as Jesus followers.
I believe they were being led by desire for a seat at the table among the powers of the earth. They wanted to be a peer to the kings of the earth. And their harsh treatment made it much easier to push them over the edge. Would they have if England had treated them well? We will never know.
We’ve seen this before:
Israel demanded they be like the other nations when they demanded a king like Saul. (1 Samuel 8:7)
The followers of Jesus asked for militant messiah-king to get them out from under the Romans. (John 6:15)
Satan tempted Jesus with a kingship over all the world. (Matthew 4:8-10).
Many Christians in the 4th century church succumbed to the temptation of political power and favor by embracing Emperor Constantine and his required Christian religion over Rome. (Read the history of Rome from AD 300 to about AD 330.)
Countless governments throughout modern history have embraced the idea of Christendom, the merging of human government with the church.
Its a history of carnage and error.
I write this post to put to rest (perhaps mostly in my own head) the idea that the formation of the American govnermnt was a thing of divine origin.
I know many of the men involved were wonderful well meaning men but I do believe they were deeply mistaken about the nature of human government and the ecclesia of Jesus Christ. They were living and reacting according to the gospel they had embraced which was likely supportive of ideas of Christendom and that the gospel was essentially just a lesson in how to get to heaven.
Had they heard the gospel of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, they may not have bothered with a revolution and a war. It may have been thrust upon them anyhow but we can never know that.
Would it not have been better if the king would have freely granted their freedom? Repented of his cruelty and violence and left them alone with motives of Christian love and freedom. And perhaps even helped them to form an even more perfect government and not sustained such a devastating loss of life and wealth in defeat in the process?
The way of Jesus Christ is better. Turning the other cheek is superior. Suffering persecution is better than striking back. Jesus can work out what we think only violence can bring us.
Public opinion polls are interesting but not a good measure of right and wrong.
They are only a good measure of right and wrong to the extent of the public’s ability and willingness to be led by the Holy Spirit.
The miniscule minority of humans who are able and willing to be led by him make opinion polls uninteresting to me to study.
Jesus Christ cares about one opinion poll only. And that is the opinions and beliefs of his followers.
He does not care which politicians we support. He cares about what we think about him and about the ministry of his body in the earth.
that is the poll I believe he takes often. Looking into his followers ongoing to shape and mold and test our thoughts on spiritual things.
It matter far more to the future of our world and our well being what we think of the place of Jesus Christ in heaven and on earth (his ecclesia) over what we think about who rules the executive branch of the government for presidency.
That means that Jesus Christ cares more about what you think of his place in your life and in your little fellowship/church than who wins the white house. Is Jesus Lord among your brother and sisters in church, does your pastor allow him to run the gatherings? Do you allow him Lordship over your finances and in your private behavior? That is the major, who you want to run the government is the minor.
Jesus can easily sway the government to his will, regardless of who is in power. Jesus-followers however have the high calling of cooperating with his purpose devised before he ever created us and this visible universe. You, dear Christian are more important to the future than Trump or Biden.
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