No gloating, no slacking

In the time span of 24 hours last week, American Christians went from being oppressed to being in charge. Incredible.

Now, due to the deftness by which God acted regarding the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, there is the prospect Christians will either overreact or underreact to this victory.

To overreact would be to gloat about winning. But gloating equals pride, one of the seven deadly sins. Beware.

To underreact would be to take the victory for granted – to become complacent, stop praying, and withdraw again from the American political process. Beware.

We must remain calm and focused, pressing on to complete our work to restore America’s Godly heritage for the sake of our progeny and as an example to a lost world. Even the Amish registered to vote in this election cycle due to the homosexual marriage issue. Christians must remain engaged.

We must also continually clean our own house.

One commentator quipped that the outcome of the 2004 presidential election demonstrated it is better for the candidate to have a pastor by his side than a rock star.

Almost true, but there’s a little more to it than that. As long as the interest of seculars in Christians is piqued, they should know that calling oneself by that name is not enough. Those calling themselves Christian must also demonstrate an interest in pursuing the things of interest to God.

(The things of interest to God can be found in the Bible, and if seculars are now truly interested in wooing Christians, they will stop trying to banish any reference of Him and it from public view. Take heed it will never happen. The recent calls for unity and peace are one-sided. It is we who are being asked to compromise, not them. Don’t fall for it.)

Therefore, we don’t consider the handful of pro-abortion, pro-homosexual pastors like Jesse Jackson and others who endorsed likeminded John Kerry to be in our camp.

Those pastors who endorsed John Kerry during his campaign, or allowed him the photo op of receiving communion, did neither he nor their church members any favors.

For good reason, the Bible calls leaders such as those reckless, unfaithful, contaminators of what is holy, and violators of God’s teaching (Zephaniah 3:4).

These pastors should be confronted with the demand they either repent or depart, for the good of their parish or congregation.

Yet we now know for certain there are far more God-fearing pastors in the land than God-mocking pastors, thank God. These pastors came through, and they should be honored.

Newly intrigued seculars might be interested to learn that Christians first invoked God’s favor on President George W. Bush in the 2000 election, not the 2004 election. In our eyes, the comparison of George Bush to Al Gore then was identical to his comparison to John Kerry now.

Go anywhere in the country and ask believers about those 36 days when the 2000 election hung in the balance, and they will all say the same thing, that they prayed with all their might during that long month and believe it was God and not the United States Supreme Court who finally handed the 2000 election to President Bush, out of mercy for us.

We now know that was the beginning of revival in the land. God showed even more favor to the faithful in 2004, hopefully because we have shown repentance and renewed loyalty to Him.

Therefore, we must demand that our elected officials pass and enforce secular laws in accordance with God’s laws.

We must also understand we absolutely cannot compromise on our values, as much as the other side suddenly appeals to our sense of unity and peace. It is a scam, a hoax, an attempt to take advantage of our soft hearts because they are now in the minority. The only way to compromise is to allow grayness in place of black and white. Tell me how to do that with regard to abortion. No.

All that said, we must remember the ultimate goal is to bring as many of them along with us into eternity as possible. We are to be salt and light. Somehow we must show love, mercy and compassion toward those who hate what we stand for, even as we continue to stand for that which they hate.

All this is impossible, yet we serve the One Who specializes in just that.