Let me make one thing clear, I am NOT a Democrat!
I'm a disciple of Jesus and that is what informs my political leaning. And to be honest, it's REALLY hard for me to understand why other people that call themselves Christians aren't on the left. Jesus literally said to the rich young ruler "Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor... then come follow me." (Mat.19:21)
The Bible talks a LOT about caring for the poor, feeding the needy, clothing those who are naked, taking care of the foreigner, because we are (almost) all from somewhere else. Remember the Good Samaritan who took care of someone that had been badly beaten and robbed? Yeah, do stuff like that!
So, I'd like to take a quick detour.
I had a very weird morning. Fighting with a flat tire on my car was just the thing to distract me from the sadness and frustration of 45 becoming 47. As I worked, I tried to figure out how to fix my car, while I was also getting a ton of messages (random subjects) from a lot of people, and I was getting super overwhelmed. But I'm glad I didn't have time to stew over the election loss.
Despite all that, I oddly feel very much at peace. The rhetoric of the last two years, and the whining and constant firehose of lies of the former president (and others from the right especially) over the last 4 years has been extremely exhausting. I'm just feeling glad it's over and God has allowed my heart to be surrendered. Whatever happens, I know that God will ultimately be in control, but I may need help remembering that in the future. Please pray for me to run after God, please. Thanks!
But I would like to share with you my convictions on why I think that voting for someone like 45 goes against the Bible.
Before you read on, I would like you to ask yourself this question:
"What do you think the purpose of Christianity is?
Or in other words,
"What is the most important thing to God?"
Please take a minute to ponder this and ask yourself what you believe the biblical answer.
-----------
Have you thought of your answer? Let me tell you what I have learned in over 30 years of being a disciple from my study of the Bible. It's incredibly simple, but not easy....
Let's look at two scriptures:
Hebrews 11: 6 - "Without faith it is impossible to please God."
1 Corinthianns 13:13 - "And these three remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love."
The Greek word for "faith" here in both of these scriptures is the word "pistis". And the word love in the second scripture is "agape". Agape being the highest form of love, completely selfless, utterly devoid of self.
Now look what we see in these scriptures. Without faith it's impossible to please God. True! But 1 Cor 13 says that love (agape) is even greater than love.
CONCLUSION: If without faith it's impossible to please God, then since love is even greater than faith, then if we are unloving, we are not pleasing to God. In fact, unless we are VERY loving, we are not pleasing to God and we are not like Jesus. The question should not be simply "What would Jesus do?, but rather "How would Jesus LOVE in this situation?"
That's a pretty high bar. Jesus was the ultimate example of pure unselfish agape love. He lived his entire life without sin, so that we would have a chance to make it to heaven. Imagine a DAY without lusting, lying, wanting to be lazy, eating too much, being greedy, stealing, smoking, drinking to excess, getting angry with someone (someone cut you off?). You get the idea. Jesus went 33 years without sinning once, I couldn't go 33 hours without messing up somewhere!
Also see:
Mat. 22:36-41
Mat. 13:34-35
Gal. 5:6
So what is love? Let's lay some ground work as to what love is, and what it's not.
WHAT LOVE IS:
Being patient,
being humble,
being completely pure,
being compassionate (putting yourself in other's shoes),
giving people chances,
being open in a kind way when someone hurts you,
patiently showing people the right way to do something,
always being ready to say something kind in an authentic way (compliments, for instance),
helping the poor and needy (so many scriptures on this),
Being there for someone who's hurting emotionally or physically,
Feeding people: friends and strangers,
Forgiving completely from the heart,
Loyalty (see 1 Cor 13)
Showing people respect, treating others better than yourselves.
[Anything of a self-LESS nature]
etc. etc. etc.
WHAT LOVE IS NOT:
Tolerating people's repetitive sins (abuse, stealing) Give grace, but expect people to change.
Impurity with others,
Calling people names,
Looking down on others,
Withholding good from people whether they deserve it or not,
Judgmental attitudes toward ANYONE, which causes you to treat them poorly,
Causing divisions/destroying unity,
Being fake, insincerity (deceit),
[Anything that lifts up self, not others; SELFISH, self-focused]
etc. etc. etc.
-----------------
The Bible infers that it's all about integrity and love. During the first term, 45 had over 30,000 provable lies or instances of mis- or disinformation. That's over 20 EVERY day of his presidency. And those are just the public statements.
He's also been convicted of 34 counts of fraud, found liable for sexual assault (owes $500 Million to her), his foundation was closed due to significant fraud, he's failed in dozens of businesses: airline, steaks, vodka, university, an institute, two casinos in New Jersey (how is that possible??), game, mortgage company, magazine, bottled water, winery, cologne, and Truth Social may fail soon. Six bankruptcies.
He's a grifter, swindler and a con artist. Many that have worked with him say how toxic the work environment is. 40 of the 44 people in his immediate circle in his first term refused to endorse him in the 2024 election. He sells everything from gold sneakers to coins, to watches, to NFTs, and everything in between. Anything to fleece his followers for a buck.
He's a bully. He has nothing but negative things to say about people that don't agree with him or that actively call him out on his lies. He's transactional in his relationships, he has no friends, only business associates. Unless you have something to offer him, he will not give you the time of day. Unquestioned loyalty is what he demands. If you turn on him, he will turn on you viciously (ie: he said that his VP would deserve being hanged on Jan. 6, 2021 because he certified the election results.)
Part of the issue is that media, especially right wing media, are doing propaganda for him. They never report on the terrible things he has done, but only ever put him in a positive light, so that the people that watch it think he is infallible (that's another whole Bible study!). He calls people names that he doesn't like: Shifty Schiff, Crooked Joe, Sleepy Joe, Lying Kamala, etc. Here is a Wikipedia list of all of the derogatory names he has called people. There are dozens and dozens of them!
List of nicknames used by Donald Trump - Wikipedia
He is hateful and divisive. He's always talking about immigrants and putting down women, and he talks incessantly about the people coming across the border as murderers and rapists, and during 2020 he said all of them were sick with the virus and infecting Americans. His ex-wife even said he had a book of Hitler speeches, from which he got phrases like "poisining the blood" and "enemy within".
And I could literally write an entire, voluminous book on all the ungodly things he has said and done, but here is what it boils down to for me SPIRITUALLY, Biblically.... He's completely ungodly. He has no compassion, and only thinks of how something will benefit him. He doesn't understand why people (veterans, specifically) fight in a war, and literally asked, "I don't get it, what was in it for them?" He literally doesn't understand selflessness!
But my biggest frustration with his fans is that it doesn't matter how many facts you show them, they refuse to believe. I've had many conversations with people that just don't believe it even if you prove your points. It's an exercise in utter futility, it rarely if ever breaks through. So I've stopped having the conversations. There is a right side here. It's not on the left, and it is completely missing on the right.
Again, I'm NOT a Democrat! Since we only have two options in our system, they tend to be closer to what I see biblically. It's about character and 45 has not shown any character AT ALL.
Finally, truth is truth. It's not something we conjure up in our minds, it's based on reality. It's rarely fun or pleasant or easy to swallow. Truth CAN, in fact, be known. It's out there and if you love truth, you can find it. But God has put this scripture on my heart lately:
1 Cor 13:6 - "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth".
I love the truth. I love researching and finding out the truth. Biblical truth and even truth in humanistic stuff: history, cars (I love cars), traveling/cultures, etc. etc. etc. I love learning, I love discovering new things that I never knew before. But we have to have Berean hearts even about secular things (but Biblical things produce more fruit!)
Acts 17: 11 - "Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true."
We have to be curious, we have to LOVE the truth (Biblical and secular). Otherwise we will just be those people the Bible warns against that just "gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." - 2 Tim 4:3 That's not a place we want to be in the eyes of God.
But I would like to finish this post by saying that I will be stepping back from some of the political posts, and focusing more on my relationship with God and others. I can't say I won't ever post anything political again, but if I do, it will be because I see biblical principles are being transgressed.
I'm going to make another post soon (hopefully) as to what I see the upcoming administration has promised to do once in office, starting with being a literal dictator on day one. It's frightening.