How Christians Should Treat the President
As Christians, we have a mandate from God concerning our leaders, including:
“Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.” (Exodus 22:28)
and
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” (Romans 13:1)
These two verses tell us that we should not speak evil of our president. Yes, we can speak out against wicked laws or policies. Many of the prophets did the same thing, and I’d go as far as to say God even ordains us to be the conscience of our leaders and to hold them accountable to His laws.
But we must NEVER disrespect the president directly or speak evil of him personally. This is an area I have certainly fallen short in the past, which was a sin. However, we must not allow ourselves to do this, as I see many conservatives falling victim of this sin in the comments on conservative news blogs.
Secondly, we must remember that God, for reasons we may not understand now, has ordained any particular presidency. It may be to punish our country for sin. It may be to usher in the end of times soon. Or Perhaps God will break our economy and punish us that way. We do not know. But we must recognize the authority of our government, and obey it in all things that do not contradict God’s laws and commands.
That means paying your taxes, and so forth. You may only disobey government if they force you to directly go against God’s command (ie, if they made a law to stop sharing the gospel, we may disobey that law).
Finally, we need to pray like never before. Pray for our president. Pray for our country. Pray for the lost to be saved.
How to Win America Back
The last bit of advice I would say is this: Elections, in the grand scheme of life, don’t really matter anyway. Making a law against abortion will not stop all women from killing children. It just deters some of them. Making laws against sin only deters it a bit. It doesn’t stop it completely.
If we really want to change America, we need a different strategy.
Politics attempts to change things from the outside-in. God works to change things from the inside-out.
We need to change the hearts of America if we want to change the course of America. If we want to elect Godly leaders, we must change the hearts of voters so they can recognize a righteous leader.
If we want a Christian nation, we must work to win people over to Christ by letting the Holy Spirit work in us and through us.
One thing that really struck me during the last election was this: People everywhere were going to rallies, putting on bumper stickers, calling homes, donating funds, putting signs in their yards, and having discussions to win people over to one party or another.
What if we could do the same thing, with the same level of participation and enthusiasm, only make it 100% about God?
What if Christians everywhere started to put signs in their yards with a gospel message saying, “I’m saved by the blood of Jesus.” What if we hastened to call people’s homes and share the gospel in an enthusiastic way?
What if we all put bumper stickers on our cars for Christ? What if we all committed to knock on a few doors?
What if Christians who don’t tithe now decided to give 10% of their income to start dominating the airwaves with messages of repentance and salvation?
What if all of the Christians in America made a commitment that no matter what, we’d work day and night until we got at least X number of people to know about Jesus in 2013?
What if every celebrity came out and endorsed Jesus Christ as their savior, boldly and unashamedly?
I suspect there would be a mass revival in America. It may not happen overnight. It may take a year, two years, a decade. But if we did it, I think it could work–God willing.
Let us pray that God sends His mighty Spirit to all of us, to empower us to do His work.
Stay positive, and keep fighting the good fight!