Sunday Prayer: Connect Me to You

 

Dear Jesus, I love you. I worship you. I trust you.

I want to bear the image of God in this world and I come to you, Jesus, so my connection with you can be restored. The only way I can demonstrate God's character is to have your life flowing through me. I need your love, your grace, and your wisdom in me so I can live a life that is worthy of you.

Jesus, you are the vine and I am the branch. You are the source of my life and I need to be grafted onto you. I want to be filled with your life, love, and wisdom. Fill me with you, Jesus, so I can overflow with your love and bring glory and praise to God.

Jesus, connect me to you, for apart from you I can do nothing.

Understanding the Trump Moment

 President Trump represents an interesting moment in American history. Because we are living through it I think we should take some time to understand what is going on.

The “Donald Trump Moment” has little to do with Donald Trump and his presidency. It has everything to do an ever growing divide that is happening in the United States. A failure to understand this only ensures that this divide grows faster and faster.

When it comes to Donald Trump himself many Christians on the right and the left get him wrong.

On the left, people act like Donald Trump is uniquely evil. They love to tell us that Donald Trump is a racist, misogynist, and a divider. Yet, when you look at what he has done, you realize the President Trump is basically an 80s Democrat (he was a Democrat in the 80s - this reminds us that a conservative is just a progressive driving the speed limit). Remember, Donald Trump was a supporter of same sex marriage way before it was cool. The real objection that people have about President Trump is they don’t like his rhetoric. They prefer their presidents to act “presidential” when they bomb other countries. Seeing President Trump as evil keeps them from giving credit to him for the good things he has done.

On the right, Christians act like Donald Trump is God’s chosen instrument to save the United States. They will tell us that President Trump is a modern day King Cyrus. Relying on Isaiah 45 they paint a picture of how Donald Trump fits the model of a nonbeliever who is appointed by God to benefit faithful people. In a sense they see attacks on President Trump as spiritual opposition. Seeing Donald Trump as chosen by God prevents them from seeing the bad things he has done.

Seeing Donald Trump as evil or God’s chosen one keeps many people from seeing the truth about President Trump: he is a typical modern day president. He overreaches with executive power, believing he is the legislator-in-chief as well as commander-in-chief. The greatest thing that sets President Trump off from every other president is his use of Twitter. Should we expect anything less from a celebrity turned president in the age of social media?

What is the “Donald Trump” moment really about?

When it comes to watching Shark Tank, Mark Cuban is the one I always pay attention to because I felt like he had a better understanding of things. But with this tweet Mark Cuban reveals he doesn’t get what is going on.

To simply explain away Donald Trump’s supporters by saying they are misled means you haven’t truly thought about what is happening. This moment really isn’t even about Donald Trump, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Replacing Donald Trump with Joe Biden is not going to make things go back to “normal.” 

Why are things not returning to “normal”?

People weren’t misled by Donald Trump. What happened is that people heard what he had to say, and they projected on to him the type of leader they wanted to have.

There is a good portion of people in the United States who are tired of being told that they are racist, that the institutions they cherish are outdated and evil, that if they hold certain conservative views they are on the outside of polite society. They are fed up with being lied to by establishment people like Mitt Romney, John McCain, and George Bush. These people would say one thing and do another, never standing up for the people who voted for them. 

The people who are tired and fed up with the establishment are the same people who formed the Tea Party movement, which then morphed into Trump Supporters. 

These people are not going away.

One thing we learned from the election is that these people are growing. Donald Trump was supposed to be swept away. This seemed plausible because any sitting president with that much going against him: mainstream media (including much of Fox News), Hollywood, Cornavirus, a slumping economy, and the Deep State (which manufactured charges about Russian Collusion) wouldn’t have stood a chance. Even in the face of this adversity Donald Trump still out performed his 2016 showing.

I know many people who voted for Donald Trump and they all knew that he was a flawed person and president, but for them he represented a way to fight back against the establishment that opposes them and the things they love.

I understand where this group is coming from, because I had my own moment in 2008 with Ron Paul. When I was going through my disillusionment with Republicans and the political establishment Ron Paul was the one who said things that resonated with me.

If current trends with the election continue with the way they are heading and we have a President Joe Biden in 2021, things are not going to return to “normal.” The Trump supporters are going to morph into something new as they seek to fight back against the establishment. An establishment, that in so many different ways, seems to be against them at every turn. 

This is what you need to understand if you are going to truly evaluate the Trump presidency.

Growing Compassion

 

One of the marks of Christian maturity is an increased capacity for compassion.  The longer we follow Jesus, the more compassion we have for people. This compassion even extends to people who are in bad circumstances caused by their own choices.

When I was younger it was easy for me to judge people who were enduring bad circumstances in their lives. 

“After all,” I reasoned; “if they would make better choices they wouldn’t find themselves in that circumstance.” 

Compassion was absent from my heart. 

Over the last several years God has transformed my heart. Rather than blaming people for their difficult circumstances my heart breaks for them. I realize most of the time they are in those circumstances, not because they want a difficult life, but because they don’t know there is a better way to live.

As Matthew put it: they are “confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

I don’t want to diminish the responsibility each of us has for the choices that we make. I do want to point out that the choices we make are hardly ever black and white. Most of the time our choices are the result of a complex mixture of experiences, emotions, and environment. 

The reality is that all of us make decisions based on the information that we have.

1 Peter 1:18 (NLT)

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 

This has been a key verse in understanding the choices people make and one of the reasons I have more compassion for them.

People live the way they were taught to live. The choices that they make sense to them in the light of what they know.

 Imagine how your life would be different if you were raised differently. Things that seem to be “common sense” may not even be known to you. 

Peter tells us that much of the world, instead of inheriting a life of faith in Jesus, they inherited a life given to them by their ancestors, a life that is empty. It is not their fault, it is simply the hand that they were dealt.

On top of inheriting an empty way of life, many people struggle with habits and addictions that are difficult to break free from. Again, it isn’t necessarily their fault. They may want to get out, but they are trapped in a prison of their own creation.

In a real sense people are victims of outside forces. 

When we read the gospels it appears that when Jesus looked at a crowd of people he didn’t see dirty rotten sinners; instead he saw people who were being victimized. Rather than condemning them for their choices and sins, Jesus showed them compassion and understanding. That is not to say that Jesus accepted their sin or acted like it wasn’t a big deal, but it does show that Jesus, the one person who could sit in judgment, chose to extend help to them.

There is a shift in our thinking that we need to make.

With the Bible in our hands it is tempting judge people with God’s truth, rather than to help them out of love. 

Jesus condemned the Pharisees for doing this very thing. They focused on people’s sin and did nothing to help them overcome it. 

This is a danger we need to avoid.

To have a knowledge of God’s will can lead us to believe that taking a stand for God’s truth is the same as doing God’s work. 

In Revelation 2:1-7 Jesus told the church in Ephesus that they were in danger of being shut out of the Kingdom because of their lack of love. The Ephesians were known for standing up for the truth, but somewhere along the line they had lost their love.

We have to be on our guard so that doesn’t happen to us. Truth shouldn’t overshadow our love.

Compassion, which is a form of love, needs to be mixed with truth. It is the mixture of  truth and love which gives us the ability to influence the people in our lives. Our care and compassion opens up people’s hearts to receive the the truth. 

 The example of Jesus is that he led with compassion. Jesus loved people through healing and helping them. Not only did he demonstrate compassion, he always told them the truth. 

Truth is a lot easier to take when you know it comes from a person who cares for you.

Jesus looked at the crowds of people and He saw people who were lost and with no way to find their way home. What these people needed was a person to show them the right direction, not lecture on how terrible it is to be lost.

As we look around us we realize that the number of people who need help are more than we can help by ourselves. What can we do? 

If we are going to show compassion to the world we have to pray. Prayer gives us a  proper perspective on life and the world around us. It also helps us to align our hearts with God’s heart. 

In our prayers we need make a request: workers for the harvest. There is a shortage of leaders who are able to show the lost the way home.

Compassion is not just reserved for our prayer life. Compassion needs to be a key characteristic of our lives. Jesus lived in such a way to show the people around him that he knew the Way they were to travel. 

As Jesus’ followers we have that same responsibility of living our lives in such a way that it demonstrates a better way to live.

To live like Jesus means we need a change of perspective. Instead of seeing the people as dirty rotten sinners we need to see them as lost travelers trying desperately to get home.

Or better yet, a field ready to be harvested and brought home.

Protect Your Heart

 

Even in best of times it is possible to loose heart. 

Grief, tragedy, and hardships come into our lives and rob us of joy, peace, and hope. Things that make life worth living.

Stress, inconveniences, and busyness, like a drippy faucet, have a similar effect. Our lives don’t have to be crumbling down for us to lose heart.

In these days of uncertainty all of us are at risk of losing heart and living, to some degree, in despair. How can we prevent this from taking place?

Here are a few quick thoughts:

1. We need to monitor our thinking: Philippians 4:8 (NLT) “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” What we think about has a huge impact on our feelings about life. What determines our thoughts are the things we put into our minds. Our TV watching, internet surfing, and social media lurking all influence what we think about and how we think about them. Limits on time and type of media are crucial for a proper thinking. This is also why Scripture meditation is important. By meditating on the Bible we are putting into our hearts and minds true, noble, and good things.
2. We need to act on what we know: Philippians 4:9 (NLT) “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” It is one thing to know that right thing to do, but it is another thing to do it. A word of caution here. We have to be intentional and realistic in what we do. Too often we try to compensate for our past failures and inaction by doing all these wonderful things, which adds to our load of stress, and when we fail to live up to expectations, our load of guilt. Small changes, when put together over time, have a big impact. So where do you start? Usually there are one or two things you know that you should be doing. That is where we start. Do the next right thing.
3. We need to confess our needs to God: 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT) “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” Giving God the things that are on our hearts is a way of letting them go. We need to be able to let them go so they don’t dominate our thoughts and emotions. It is important to remember that this takes time. Yes, it would be nice if all we had to do was to give our worries and cares to God once and that be the end of it. Often, because these thoughts and cares are imbedded in our hearts, it takes multiple times to truly handing them over to God for them to leave our hearts.
4. We need to worship: 1 Peter 3:15 (NLT) “Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.” Worship is the best way to orient our lives back towards God. Remember, we are created in God’s image and for us to live that image out in our lives, our focus must be on Him. Whether it is through singing songs, journalling our gratitude, or praying from our hearts, worship shifts our perspective from ourselves to God. That shifts allows us to live with hope.

In this world, with all of its hardships and tragedies, we need to protect our hearts. We by living with hope, and hope comes from the intentional action of following Jesus.

Don’t lose heart and don’t despair. Turn your heart and mind towards God and let Him fill you with hope.