Politics Last

Oddly enough we get a lot of talk about politics. Should we vote for an awful Republican candidate or an even worse Democrat? It is enough to get people depressed about the country. The good new and the bad news is we get the candidates we deserve. It isn't just bad luck that we get politician after politician who can't be honest with the people and can't get the right answers to even the most basic moral questions. These guys come from somewhere. They come from society. They are evil because we are evil. They make stupid arguments because we fall for stupid arguments.

On the surface this does not seem like good news. The system is not broken. We are broken. Our hearts and minds have gotten us into this mess. But it is good news. The reason it is good is because Jesus can help us fix our hearts and minds. We can start with our own. We can focus on loving God with all our hearts and minds and souls. When we do that the political world will look different. Parties disappear. Even most policy becomes irrelevant. You just see a bunch of lost people. Who cares who wins? God will take care of the nation. We just need to keep our integrity and put love first.

The key is that politics is the last place we should be doing that. We should do it there but we should have done it everywhere else first. We should love gay people first before we enter a gay marriage debate. We should love women with unplanned pregnancies first before we talk about abortion. We should love the poor and the immigrant and the racial minorities. The list goes on. We can transform society with great love. If we try and take a short cut and just transform it through political games we will lose out souls and get nothing in return.

The truth is that love and politics both will change us. Love will change us for the better. Politics will change us for the worse. Look how Jesus took down the Roman Empire. He did not do it by attacking the political leaders and calling for them to be overthrown. He did it by giving Himself up in love. It took time but He changed the Empire from the bottom up instead of from the top down. It is not enough to just change the leaders. We need to change society. We do that by loving one broken heart at a time. Some will respond by joining us. Some will respond by getting angry with us. No shortcuts. No master plan. Just know that God can do more with one small act of great love than with 100 clever political putdowns.