Eternity > Winning Arguments, Elections, Power

Happy Friday! First off, let’s remember who we are: redeemed, justified, ambassadors for Christ. That means we follow His direction, not our own.

We have been called to live in peace with our neighbors and love them as we love ourselves. That includes people who hold differing beliefs, lifestyles, ideals, etc. 

We sometimes forget that all authority comes from God and He places leaders in authority. He is sovereign. As Christians, we don’t have to rejoice about the results we don’t like, but we’re still called to love our neighbors, respect authority, and pray for our leaders.

Because we are ambassadors for Christ, we need to ask ourselves “how would Jesus handle this situation?“ The Bible is pretty clear about this.

The Romans were the governing authority in Jesus’ time and He did not advocate for overthrowing the Roman Empire as most Jews expected the Messiah to do. His focus was on God’s eternal kingdom and getting as many people into it as possible.

That should be our focus also.

Paul makes it clear in Romans what our response should be:

“Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.” Romans 12:14 NLT

He continues in Romans 12:17-21 NLT, “Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honorable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone.

Dear friends, never take revenge. Leave that to the righteous anger of God.

For the Scriptures say, “I will take revenge; I will pay them back,” says the Lord.

Instead, “If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals of shame on their heads.”

Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.””

We are in a spiritual battle and these big decisions, disagreements, and fights we have here on this planet will all fall away. Eternity is forever. Let’s remember that our enemies have eternal souls that are destined for hell if they don’t know the saving grace of Jesus.

When Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves and love our enemies, He’s doing that out of love and the grim knowledge that many will not heed His call and spend eternity apart from God.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV

As ambassadors for Christ, we are called to the same love. A love that draws people to Christ, a love that speaks the truth in love, a love that prays for our neighbors and enemies and acts out that love in practical ways. (Matthew 5:43-48, 19:19, 22:38; Galatians 5:14, Mark 12:31, James 2:8, Romans 13:8, etc.)

I’m not saying this is always easy, but we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength (Philippians 4:13).

When you ask yourself “Who are you?”, what’s your answer?