A Battle Cry
/We the People who are the Body of Christ
It’s time to fight for what is right.
It’s time to let love win by covering a multitude of sin.
I’m feeling a little William Wallace-ish today. No, I am not going to paint my face blue, but I am going to share my heart with you.
After much prayer and many tears, I have written and rewritten what God’s Word, His Truth, His Voice has been stirring in my heart about a call to love, but I must warn you, it is not a gushy, mushy kind of love, and it definitely does not agree with the world’s kind of love.
It’s a God kind of love. A love that lays it all on the line kind of love. A love that does not shy away from the truth kind of love. Because any other kind of love is not love at all. Any other kind of love will not last. It will eventually fall.
And that, dear friends, is what has my heart so stirred. I fear we are falling, and falling fast, because the love we are displaying is a love that will not last.
As I have pondered and prayed and cried out to God, what has risen up in me looks and feels a bit like a scene from Braveheart.
“I see a whole army of my countrymen (and women), here, in defiance of tyranny. You’ve come to fight as free men, and free men you are. What will you do without freedom? Will you fight? Aye. Fight and you may die. Run, and you’ll live...at least a while. And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days, from this day to that, for one chance -– just one chance –- to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives but they’ll never take our freedom!”
I warned you. It’s a bit dramatic, and yet, it is oh so true to what is stirring in my heart. I believe, whether you agree or not, that as we walk into our polling places on November 3rd, we’re not just casting a vote for a man, we are making a choice to take a stand. I believe we will stand for freedom or fall prey to tyranny. There. I said it, and you may disagree.
And that’s ok, but while this is still a free country, I feel very led to explain why I feel so strongly about this.
Neither presidential candidate is Godly by any stretch of the imagination. Honestly, there will never ever be a perfect candidate for POTUS or any other governmental position of power. That’s why our choice as Christian American Citizens is not simply between these two men, it is a choice between the party platforms upon which they stand and the policies for which they have a plan, and we the people who make up the body of Christ have an important decision to make.
Will we fight for what is right? Will we let love win by covering a multitude of sin?
We are on a battlefield. We are in a war. It’s not a physical battle, but a spiritual one. We may not have Scottish accents or paint on our faces, but that passion in our hearts should be enough to move us to fight and stand up for what is right! We must stand up for the unborn because they cannot stand up for themselves. We must stand up for religious freedom and freedom of speech or freedom as we know it will be out of our reach. We must stand up for what so many have already fought and died for — starting with our precious Savior who gave His life that we might live, in victory and in freedom.
When freedom is threatened, we must stand on the very Truth that sets us free and battle back from our position of victory — in prayer and under God’s Authority.
My fear is that over the years we’ve lost our fight because we’ve believed a lie that what’s wrong is right. The longer we believe that lie, the harder it will be fight for what is right.
Thomas Paine, in his book, Common Sense says,
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
We the people who are the body of Christ must fight for what is right.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, we the people have not, do not, and will not ever agree on everything. In fact, right now, it seems we cannot ever agree on anything!
So, why is it that even the we the people who make up the body of Christ also disagree on so many things when we are supposed to be using Biblical convictions to inform our decisions? Why such a great divide among those who should be greatly unified?
I believe it’s because we have justified our sin, turned our back on Him, and come up with our own moral standards, ultimately redefining truth, redesigning love, and leaving out altogether the very One who established truth and embodies love.
If we are supposed to be like minded, then what in the world, or better yet, what in the Word, are we missing? Are some of us wrong and others right, or are we both a little wrong and a little right? It’s confusing, isn’t it? The more we manipulate truth the more we lose sight of what is right.
We the people who make up the body of Christ are on a very dangerous trajectory headed for equally dangerous territory. We’re busy coming up with new rules based on new truths, all the while, being deceived and led away from the Biblical Truths established by God to keep us safe.
It’s time to fight for what is right. It’s time to let love win by covering a multitude of sin.
Love. As God defines it. Love. As He also commands it. It holds together the first two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40), and it can hold us together, too, even when disagreements threaten to tear us apart. Love is the greatest of these (1 Corinthians 13:13), and it is for the least of these (Matthew 25:40). It’s what we the people who are the body of Christ are called to do, but how can we love when we have completely forgotten how to?
How can we love as God defines it if we love in a way that defiles it?
We have forgotten how to love because we have strayed so far away from Love Himself. “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8) When we turn our backs on God, we abandon love. We blur the line between right and wrong. We dilute the truth. We water down the gospel to make it more palatable. Sin is no longer sin as God defines it, and love is no longer love because we have defiled it.
We’ve decided God’s love is not enough when it’s really all we need to set us free.
If God — the God of the universe, who knit us together in our mother’s womb, who intimately created us, gives us breath to sustain us, and made a way to redeem us when we strayed and lost our way because He loved us so much…
If God — the very epitome of love defined love in a way that would refine us in order to reconcile us so we, too, could love like that…
If God so loved us…
We must fight for what is right, and let love win by covering a multitude of sin.
We the people who are the body of Christ, have been called by His name, redeemed by His love, and saved by His grace, and now more than ever, we must humbly seek His face, turn from our wicked ways, and fight for what is right.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
~ 1 John 4:7-21
We the People who are the Body of Christ
It’s time to fight for what is right.
It’s time to let love win by covering a multitude of sin.
And if you’re curious about what the Trump Administration has accomplished during the past four years he’s been in office, click here. Again, you may not like the man, but these are some of the things for which this administration stands.