Thursday, April 22, 2010

Don't Be A Hater

Despite the influence of my union-minded father, I have never been too ingrossed by politics. Mostly political talk bores and irritates me much like the Obama-smear-campaign I have witnessed taking place bit-by-bit on facebook, not that he's attempting to smear anyone, but he's getting smeared and what irritates me is that in some haphazard, ridiculous manner its being done in the name of Christ. Evidentally, some supposed Christ-followers are so inscensed over Obama's stance on certain moral and ethical issues that they feel the need to twist and contort half truths into total untruths in an attempt to defame our current president. An anti-Obama post that was being passed around last week alerted me to this unfortunate political measure. It stated that Obama had canceled the National Day of Prayer and expressed great displeasure that Obama was supposedly trampling on the religious rights of Christians in this country. I was tempted to repost it because as a lover of Christ myself, the wording and accusations raised my hackles a little, but something caused me to pause and question the validity of the statement, so off to www.snopes.com I did go to find that the entire claim was bogus. In fact, any truth that existed in the words of the posts were twisted bits and pieces of misunderstood and unrelated non-events. Call me naieve, but the idea that a person would tell complete lies to anger the public against another human-being dumbfounded me, and the underlying tone that this individual was angry because Obama had offended her Christianity frustrated me because I truely love Christ, and do not desire for him to be midrepresented in such a way because down the road when an unbeliever realizes what has happened, he will fault Christ as not being who he said he was when it would never have been Jesus' desire to lie about or to disrespect the President of the United States in such a way whether he supported his views or not. I'm not attempting to sway anyone to become an Obama supporter because as I earlier stated, I don't do politics and know very little of what he intends to accomplish as President, but I do hope to encourage my Christian brothers and sisters to refrain from being haters because that poorly represents Christ to the public! If you doubt my doctrine here, check out these scriptures: Romans 13: 1-2,6-7 Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority exept that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgement on themselves. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. So, what, then, are we to do when we disagree with our governing leaders? This, I find beautiful being that all this hulabaloo was over the National Day of Prayer, read Matthew 5:44 But I [Jesus] tell you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. I expect to see and hear all my fellow lovers and followers of Jesus Christ respecting, honoring, and praying for Barack Obama on the very uncanceled National day of prayer(May 6th).

I hope this does not come off too snarky because such an attitude doesn't honor God either. We are all, most definitely, including me susceptible to getting caught up in waves of our humanity. What I mean by that is that it is an entirely normal human reaction to get into a fighting stance when you feel something you love and cherish is being threatened, and having a leader in place who does not necessarily share our moral and ethical views seems to be such a situation, but if we truely want to honor and love God with our lives, we often must fight against those waves of humanity with the strength that Christ provides in order to behave in obedience and respect to God's word.

Join me in showing the world who Christ really is by living out as well as speaking out the word of God!:)

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