Like a kettle that has been left unattended on the stove, the political temperature in the United States has passed the boiling point and is screaming for change. The angry rhetoric that has existed in media/social media for months has now erupted into actual violence. It is a sad chapter in American history. I pray that the events of the last couple of days serve as a catalyst for return to peace and civility. But how should we individually respond? As a fellow citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, a follower of the Prince of Peace, let me offer a few truths from the Bible that transcend today’s political turmoil.
- We live in a broken, sinful world. Jesus said in Matthew 24 that in the end times, the love of most will grow cold. But as followers of Jesus, we are called to love. We need to stay connected to Jesus in prayer and reading the Bible and ask God to increase our capacity to love others around us.
- We can mourn with those who mourn (Romans 12). A wife is now grieving the loss of her husband because of political violence. We can pray for comfort for all those impacted by the loss.
- In Matthew 5 Jesus states that peacemakers will be blessed and called children of God. To the extent that we are able, we should focus on bringing peace to a world that so desperately needs it. That peace primarily comes from knowing Jesus, and that leads to the final point.
- in 1 Corinthians 15, the apostle Paul reminds the church in Corinth that he passed on a message that is of most importance: “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Our mission as followers of King Jesus is to do the same – to pass on the message of Jesus. Jesus is the solution to every problem in this broken world that we live in. The political turmoil in the United States right now is the context in which we get to share this most important message. If we get caught up in the turmoil, it can become a distraction that dilutes or even eliminates our ability to share the most important message.
Here in the Czech Republic, ministry goes on. We have made a conscious decision to make the message of Jesus the main thing. Although we are from America, we bring a message from heaven. We labor and strive because we have our hopes set on the living God. I pray for all of us that we would be encouraged by the the Spirit of God as we put the message of Christ first in our thoughts, actions, and speech. As we fix our eyes on heaven – our eternal home – the problems of this world fade in comparison.