As this comes out, the Presidential Inauguration was yesterday. Depending on your point of view, it’s a time of hope for a new and positive beginning or despair. OR, it’s time to renew our focus as believers. Jesus’ message was a simple one:
From that time on Jesus began to proclaim his message with these words: “Keep turning away from your sins and come back to God, for heaven’s kingdom realm is now accessible.” (Matthew 4.17, TPT)
Jesus lived during a time of great oppression. There were no elections. There was no recourse for a Jew to oppose Rome. The answer? Turn from your sins and focus on God’s’ Kingdom.
This might be a word for today. Two weeks ago there was an assault on the capitol by Trump supporters. What kingdom are you supporting? If you’re a believer, are you really putting your hope in all the conspiracy stories going around? Or are you putting your hope in the new administration?
Again, our hope should be in neither. I wrote last week about Mike Metzger’s call for a Third Way – a conservative/liberal approach. I also shared Tony Dungy’s call for five practices that should characterize us in 2021, beginning with reading the Bible through.
Our pastor shared Sunday that in the middle of a very oppressive regime, Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was that they experience the love of God. (See Ephesians 3.14 – 21. Better yet, pray it!) Our pastor included this challenge:
If we are not living out of our experience of God’s love, if we are not leading the way in bringing peace, if we are not safe to be around because we’re going to be haranguing from one political position or the other, the New Testament would describe us as immature. – Dr. David Jordan-Irwin, Monument Community Presbyterian Church, January 17, 2021.
My prayer for us all in 2021 is that we experience God’s love, share it with others, and focus on the Kingdom of God.
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matthew 6.33, ESV)
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7.14, ESV)
An old high school acquaintance, a successful author of thoughtful books, hung a neo-fascist label on the outgoing era. I had long seen parallels myself. Your blog reminds me that we often seek new relief from real or perceived ills. Where we go astray is when we seek a novel relief, new, must be better.
While 5G communications might be new we are not. We are still the same flawed vulnerable people we have always been. Be not like moths to a flame! Stop, turn back to that which has sustained us for 2000 years!
Well said, Tom. A call to repentance.