Politics
revolves around power. Sovereign power. Government power. Governments put in
place to run countries. At least the politics that I’ve been talking about in
this series. The politics that revolve around getting elected to or associated
to government. Sovereign government. A government currently divided against
itself right now, just like the nation it represents. Yet, we as Christians
know unequivocally that power, whether it be sovereign or not comes from the
Sovereign God that we believe in. Knowing this we need to understand that we
must not view any country or human government as our ultimate home…Where we're going there are no politics.
"…for our citizenship is in heaven"
(Philippians 3:20).
Ironically the Greek word for citizenship here is πολίτευμα /politeuma from which we get the word politics. It literally means...a form of government and or...a way in which we are to live our lives. As Christians. We are to live here, expatriated, as we will live there under God's reign. Why? Because we are already under His reign. We are representatives of that heavenly country. We are constituents of God's holy nation/rule.
To seek
change or power via this type of earthbound government or to go the long way
via man-made channels to make things happen is a fools errand. Why should we go
through a fallen corruptible human politician to seek change when we can
petition the One who gives power to that fallen vessel (or doesn’t give power
to them)? We should be seeking to go directly to the source not a derivative. Seek
the true source of information, all else is hearsay. Seek the orthodoxy all
else is heresy. Seek the original, not the counterfeit.
Secondly,
knowing that true sovereign power comes from God we need to think along large
scales both physically, spiritually, proximity and destination. In the
following verse we see an entire people living their entire lives in faith and
not receiving the promises while alive. They relied in faith that God would
provide what He promised and He did. For the time being, we are "strangers
and exiles on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13; cf. 1 Peter 2:11). We are looking
forward to a "heavenly country" (v.16) and the Sovereign God Himself
who has promised to prepare a city for us (v.16). We must act as citizens of
that ‘country’ to which we belong. We should not try to over-actively change
the one we currently reside within. It is too fallen and too broken to fix
adequately.
“All these
people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the
things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance,
admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such
things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been
thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to
return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one.
Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a
city for them. Hebrews 11:13-16
The Hebrews
passage shows us that God knows we live in a sub-par system now as we are to be desiring a better country. It’s assumed in the text. The unstated
implication. The irony is that it is us, Christians, that are expatriated here
now on Earth. We cannot hope to make the system here perfect because it is
control by the Prince of the Air and this world is effectively the devil’s
system. We shouldn’t seek to try and waste a ton of energy here now trying to
make this this ‘stopover’ on earth perfect. What’s the point? Its temporary and
passing away.
This being
true, why would we so entangle ourselves so deeply in the affairs of this world
that we forget our heavenly country and the Divine mandate which Christ has
given to His Church? The mandate to seek out others and teach them the things
Christ taught us. Just as Jesus explained all the things that are taking place
and have taken place on the road to Emmaus. We should be explaining them as we
walk down to narrow path leading home.
We should be
seeking to recruit volunteers for the trek to the new country over the
mountains (trials) and valleys (prosperity) we will traverse. Seek to find
companions on our journey down the road to our new homeland while waving
goodbye to the old world. Waving goodbye and not seeking to return. For what
lies ahead is of vastly more worth. No more fences. No more wars. No more violence. No more lies. No more propaganda. Something idyllic. Something perfect. No more of the things of this world that makes us not want to be here anyway.
We need to point people in that direction not detour them from it down a million dead-ends. Point them towards belief in the God that built that country for us. Point them towards Faith in Him and that.
I seek the country road...that will take me
home. To the place I truly belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment