The Partisan Paradox VI: Take Me Home, Country Road….

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.