Are you ready to finish discussing why Christians aren’t voting before I tell you exactly who to vote for? I’m so glad you came back for part two.
If you missed part one, you can check it out here.
Let’s wrap this up with a nice bow so we can be confident when we head to the polls in November. Onward we go with two more reasons…and the sticky part – who to vote for.
We Forget We Have Inside Information
Those around us are limited in their knowledge and understanding to only what they see and hear on the news. They don’t have the wisdom and foresight of the One who dwells in eternity living in them. They don’t have access to inside information from the One who sees tomorrow more clearly than we’ll ever see yesterday.
But we do. And we need to vote like we do. Are we going to just back out of it all together and let people who don’t even know Him or have His wisdom have full control over this election? That’s what not voting will do.
We don’t know that God’s plans look different than ours and at times they even look bad
From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.
But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Matthew 16:21-23)
Peter reprimanded Jesus. Ummm…wow! It takes some nerve to correct the Son of God, don’t you think? But he did it because Jesus was talking defeat and Peter didn’t like it. When Peter said, “This will never happen to you!” what he was really saying was, “The cross is a bad idea. God’s plan of salvation should never happen!”
The cross looked bad to the disciples. Unbelievably horrible! And if they had been voting on it, they would have voted no! They would have been voting against the redemption of all mankind! Voting against the plan of God.
Let that sink in for a second. God’s good plan looked bad to the disciples.
Peter would never have said that if he understood then what we know now, but he didn’t. He couldn’t stand the thought of his best friend dying. Peter couldn’t see past how the plan of God negatively affected him and his emotions and his comfort.
God could see the whole picture – salvation had to happen – but Peter was seeing things merely from a human point of view. Does that describe us looking at these elections? Are we only seeing how it impacts us? Our emotions? Our comfort?
Or are we looking past all of that and saying, “Father, I know You’ve got a plan. It may not make sense to me. I don’t understand, but I trust You. Show me Your plan. Show me who to vote for because to be honest, I can’t imagine voting for either candidate. I need Your help.”
Do we trust that God has a plan now just like He did then and that maybe we’re not seeing the whole picture? Yes, I believe we do.
Please. I’m begging you. Don’t NOT vote. That’s like withdrawing from society and sticking our head in the sand. We need to vote. Have I convinced you yet?
And now….for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Who should we vote for? Are you ready for my informed opinion?
Normally I would say, “Vote your conscience.” But that doesn’t really seem to apply this time around. Both candidates violate my conscience in one way or another. How about you?
Where’s that drum roll? We should vote for……whoever the Holy Spirit tells us to vote for.
You don’t need me to give you a name. You have the wisdom of God living in you in the person of the Holy Spirit.
Spirit-led voting is vital in these elections.
Let’s pray. Seek God’s face. Ask Him what He’s thinking. Ask Him for a name and then follow the leading of the Holy Spirit within. He can be trusted. He has a plan and He knows what He’s doing, even if we don’t understand it.
And He will lead us in this decision like He does whenever we ask for His wisdom and guidance.
If you’re interested, here’s a message I did during the Friday evening session of the Send the Rain Prayer Seminar on July 8th. It’s called Praying for Your Leaders and it addresses some of these key areas of concern. (I’m working on getting it uploaded here and on my iTunes podcast, but for now, click the title and it will take you to our podcast page where you can scroll down to the prayer seminar.) I’m praying that it brings us peace and guidance and wisdom from heaven to help us pray for and navigate through this election season. And to help us vote.