Everything is riding on this one thing

People are lining up in record numbers across this nation to cast their vote. Ballots are including everyone seeking an office from the local level to the highest office in the land. Your candidate will win or lose, according to the amount of votes he or she gets every four years. The sobering reality is that [that]day is next week. However one thing seems to be the loudest selling point from almost every candidate universally, and that is fear. If that person can sell enough fear concerning the other candidate, or the economy, or, yes, a virus, then they can control the way we think. As our thinking goes, so goes our vote and nothing divides quite like fear.

We find ourselves entrenched into one of two camps. You’re either blue or red, Republican or Democrat. We seem to create a political landscape every four years that looks like a scene from World War I. We have dug our trenches on this side; the enemy has done the same on the other side; and we’ve littered the middle with barbed wire, land mines; and dead bodies. The saddest part is that most soldiers don’t even know what they’re fighting for. So pick a side, keep your head down, and hope the great divide doesn’t swallow us up. Then we can all come out of our bunkers when it’s all over and be friends again, but, until then, someone has to be the enemy. The problem is we’re not fighting for the wounded in the middle; we seem to be battling over the other team’s trenches. You know, “Their trenches are nicer, longer, more dangerous, less or more productive, more or less diversified.” Eventually someone will raise their head and get shot down. It’s called warfare, or, in today’s language, we simply call it politics.

Jesus had something to say about this upcoming election ,and he recorded it 2,000 ago in the book of John chapter 17. He simply presented a prayer request to God on behalf of mankind, and he did this in the midst of the battle. He saw attack lines being drawn, trenches dug, and land mines dividing the two sides, and he moved himself to the middle, knelt between the barbed wire and asked for one thing in verse 21, “Lord let them be one.” Yes, Jesus prayed unity over the division. Not just that they would get along but that they would have supernatural unity when he prayed “just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.”

Now you may say that Jesus prayed that over his disciples, but let’s back up to verse 20 and see that he included good ole 2020 and its election in his prayer when he said, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” Yes if we are going to be politically correct in this season, then we must hear the master during his greatest season and realize that we are not red or blue, conservative, liberal, or cast our vote along party lines. Jesus prayed for a spirit of supernatural unity. He knew that forces would seek to divide us as time progressed. He knew that if we sought to come together rather than separate, then the message of Christ would speak louder than the platform of politics.

Your candidate will succeed based on how the country votes every four years, but the church wins or loses based on how we see one another every day. So there’s only one way to vote this upcoming election and that is supernaturally. Disagreement doesn’t have to divide us, but disfunction will destroy us. I would like to invite you to spend some time with us in the voting booth this Sunday as we cast our vote for the party of unity and vote Jesus, because come Nov. 4th or even Jan. 4th, one candidate will win, and the other won’t, but Jesus will still be king.

We’re Christpoint Church, and you can find us open every Sunday. We’re on the square in Sparta and have two service times for your convenience:  9 a.m. and 11 a.m. We’re real people, living real lives, serving a real God. Welcome home.