This is intended for us who call ourselves Christians, put our faith in Jesus for salvation, and believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God. As Americans, it is our privilege and right to vote. As Christians, it is our duty to vote and to vote in a way that honors our righteous Lord, Jesus Christ.
We cannot honor God in our voting without discernment. Mirriam-Webster defines wisdom as, “The ability to discern, good sense.” Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Godly wisdom gives us discernment and good sense of knowing how to honor God in our vote.
How are we to be sure Godly wisdom is the basis of our beliefs and political decisions? James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God….” Do we fear God in the Biblical sense, spend time with Him, and seek His wisdom to vote in ways that honor Him and advance His kingdom, or have we allowed ourselves to become indifferent, ignorant, or blinded?
Ask Him to give us the wisdom to discern what policies, actions, and convictions reveal Biblical truth and honor Him.
God’s Kingdom
Protect the lives of all, without exception
Freedom of expression
Peace that God controls creation
God created man and woman
Power entrusted to individuals and family
Personal ownership
Acknowledgment of God’s authority
World’s Kingdom
Celebrates murdering babies
Corporate, nonprofit, and government censorship
Worship creation and fear its loss
Individuals determine gender
Growing government
Government allocates resources
Indifferent to or dismissal of God
God is increasingly clarifying the distinction between His kingdom vs. the kingdom of darkness in this world. Colossians 1:19-20 teaches that Jesus came to give us peace with God. We mistakenly believe we are to be at peace with the world.
Matthew 10:34 says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” In addition, 2 Corinthians 6:14
says, “… For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?” Darkness and light cannot coexist. While loving others, we are to be clearly distinguishable from the world, bringing salt, light, and Biblical truth. Without these, there is no love.
God created this world and authored the rules. We see chaos, violence, and confusion because we who call ourselves believers in Jesus lost our commitment to honor Jesus as Lord and to know and share Biblical truth. Galatians 6: 7 says, “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.”
If we love others as we say we do, we will acknowledge our own sin-caused blindness, renew our commitment to Jesus as Lord, and seek Biblical wisdom. We will then see His clear distinction between light and darkness in the policies, platforms, and actions of the candidates on our ballots.
It is our duty to our righteous Lord and to those we love, to vote with Godly wisdom.
_____________________________
Kelly Karns is a former Marine, a businessman, a banking instructor, a writer, and a Jesus follower. Kelly and Mary’s daughter, Anne, is married to our son Kade. Kelly writes encouraging letters to family members before elections. With permission, I publish Kelly Karn’s 2022 election letter. It’s worth reading and sharing before we vote.
Wade,
As I was reading this, I thought it was you who was writing it, but the last thing you said revealed it was a relative by marriage.
I don’t agree with James saying ask God for wisdom in knowing how to vote. God gave us a brain and expects us to use it. If what James said was true, we could bury our heads in the sand and vote as Kelly Harns said in God’s Kingdom: “Know God created man and woman. God controls creation. Acknowledgement of God’s authority.” duh
I’d rather know:
1. Illegal people are invading our country by the millions; thanks to President Biden.
2. Some of these people bring drugs that look like candy that has killed thousands.
3. Cost of living; gas, grocers, etc. has hit the moon.
REX RAY,
HOW did YOU get through the ‘machine’???
I failed my first try. I’m sure I did something wrong.
On groceries,
I have ‘converted’ to more eggs, beans cooked from scratch, and brown rice cooked from scratch. . . . occasionally I get a Wendy’s Daves triple, for strength. It helps with the food expenses. I don’t ‘recommend’ it but with some gardening and some visits to dairies and fruit stands, I imagine we might all save by avoiding the ‘processed canned stuff’ which is over priced anyway.
I will NOT give up COFFEE. Not my coffee, no. 🙂 I try now to resist the occasional chocolate bar, but it’s hard to do this. (sweet tooth)
As for the given ‘advice’ on voting,
I think we will all do very well to examine the issues and vote following our consciences.
I won’t vote out of fear, I’ll stay with having hope for people who are of good will. Even if they have been demonized, which always tells me more about those who do the demonizing than about the folks who are ‘targeted’ who are ‘of good will’. . . .
What is that saying?
” They can fool some of us some of the time,
and they can fool all of us some of the time,
but they can’t fool all of us all of the time.”
I also avoid ‘media’ that preaches hate for ‘the others’, sees people who think differently as ‘the enemy’, and try to stir up fear and division among our American people. They are the ‘dividers’ and another name for satan is ‘the divider’. Just ‘sayin.
CHRISTIANE,
I liked your comment of quoting: “Can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Judy said the price of eggs have gone up more than anything. Wonder if the chickens have gone on strike? That’s bad because I eat 42 eggs a week.
The Leader Newspaper has a publication of 15,000 and mails it free to seven towns (makes money from advertising). This week it printed a lot of pictures of veterans. My brother-in-law and I were in it.
I should have sent the newspaper a picture of my uncle Rex as he was a chaplain in World War I. He wrote:
“When the Flu epidemic struck in 1918, our camp had 12,000 men down at one time. There would be 50 or 60 dead at the railway depots every midnight without coffins since there were no more coffins.”
One wonders just how much of the evangelical world HAS bought into this kind of thinking:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/president-donald-j-trump-the-son-of-man-the-christ-helgard-m-ller/1140947967
Gene Vieth on Patheos Evangelical Blogs has mentioned Helgard Muller and listed some of Muller’s “evidence”, but to his credit, Vieth has said it was idolatrous.
Nevertheless,
one has to wonder WHY voting ‘Trump’ these days is considered ‘Christian’, and for many of us the answers given make little to no sense in the light of the four Holy Gospels of Our Lord in sacred Scripture, to be honest. (?)
CHRISTIANE,
I read your link, and I thought it was junk.
Wade,
Ask Google about what Biden can do this year about you know what.
thank goodness!
you are smarter than the average bear, REX RAY
“Federal Agencies Face April Deadline…”
Wonder if the ‘machine’ works to hide information that a President ordering all information about something to be ‘hidden’ for 80 years?
Wade,
I’ve been told that I talk too much about my brother. James didn’t do that as in his book, he mentioned God 81 times and Jesus 5.
James missed the three teaching years of Jesus as shown:
“and Jesus’ brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration. “Go where your followers can see your miracles!” they scoffed. You can’t become a public figure if you hide like this! If you can do such wonderful things, prove it to the world! For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.” (John 7:3-6 NLT)
Not once in the book of James did he mention the heart of the Gospel (Calvary), but going to heaven was based on your works:
“For there will be no mercy for you if you have not been merciful to others. But if you have been merciful, then God’s mercy toward you will win out over his judgment against you.” (James 2:13 NLT)
I agree with Martin Luther who called the book of James a book of straw.
CHRISTIANE,
When do you believe James changed his mind into believing his brother was the Son of God?
After Calvary, “…then he was seen by James…” (1 Corinthians 15:7)
Don’t you know that was a shock!
We feed birds on a table about 15 feet from my computer. At present, I see a bird eating bird seed. Guess what kind of bird is it? (Hent, God used it to give a message to man.)
REX RAY,
a dove 🙂
St. James emphasizes what Martin Luther did NOT want emphasized.
But matters of ’emphasis’ are not the same as ‘disagreements’ and ‘divisions’ in the Church, no.
That is something to think about.
There is core to the Christian faith that comes from the ‘Logos’, ‘the WORD’ that was with God in the beginning. We can access the core of our faith within the Holy Gospels of Our Lord which testify to Him.
I’d say it is ‘okay’ for folks to ’emphasize’ what is meaningful to them AS LONG AS THEY don’t ‘turn away’ from the Holy Gospels of Our Lord as found in the sacred Scriptures.
I’d give the four Holy Gospels precedence in importance, although I do realize that for some, the Words of Christ in sacred Scripture have no ‘special’ priority. But how can that be? I do not know. Some ‘teachings’ come from another place where people have realized that they cannot ‘control’ the ‘message’ without denigrating the importance of the Word of the Lord as recorded in those Gospels,
but I would say this:
even His followers warned us of this happening:
“But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”
2 Cor. 11:3 (Warning is from St. Paul)
|REX RAY, to me, the words ‘the simplicity that is in Christ’ means that
when Our Lord has said it in the Holy Gospels,
then no one elses’ words can unsay it or ‘make it better or more understandable’
There ARE NO ‘in other words’ when Our Lord has spoken.
CHRISTIANE,
We heard this last Sunday. The preacher asked how you can go to heaven. A small boy in the back yelled, “You got to be dead!”
CHRISTIANE,
You got that bird right.
Yes, when Jesus said it, then no one else can make it better. What Jesus said in Matthew 7:13-14 (NLT) is true today:
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it.”
CHRISTIANE, that means there’s going to be many more in Hell than Heaven.
CHRISTIANE,
Before Uncle Rex went to China for 30 years, he couldn’t forget a ‘vision’ he had of thousands of Chinese faces that he knew were going to hell without Jesus.
REX RAY,
Our Lord spoke in the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew chapter 25, these words that help us to understand ‘the narrow way’:
“And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
34Then shall the King say unto them on His right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
REX RAY, I think Our Lord, in His many parables, helps us to open our eyes and ears to the great Paschal Mysteries of Salvation
my favorite parable is ‘the Good Samaritan’ and I think it helps to understand that only God can judge who is going to heaven and who is ‘not justified’,
and that we shall be ‘surprised’ at all the ‘self-righteous’ who end up not justifies by God
‘God giveth grace to the humble’ 🙂
Hence the biblical Sinner’s Prayer: ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner’
REX RAY, something I learned from my son with Down Syndrome who ‘witnessed’ to me of Christ without ever speaking the Holy Name:
My own thinking is that there are a great many ‘Christian’ souls in this world who do not know ‘the words’ but whose hearts respond to the Word by the grace of God. The Holy Spirit goes where He wills to go. The individual with Down Syndrome and severe retardation who carefully chooses toys and brings them over to a resident on a stretcher and lays the toys gently into grateful hands . . . he hears the Word in a way that puts theology to shame in its inability to help those who reason to overcome their far more grievously damaged hearts.
Whatever is ‘authentically’ ‘Christian’ is something ‘more than’ can be encapsulated in any man-made entity. Authentic Christianity belongs to those who may not know the written word, nor the language of faith, but who ‘hear’ the Word resonate in their souls and respond in a way that is unmistakable to all who witness it. The witnesses ‘know’ without doubt what they have encountered is ‘of Christ’.
CHRISTIANE,
Good thinking. Please say a prayer for my daughter, Beth Porter, as today she was diagnosed having COVID. When she got the COVID shot, she got the Shingles.
YES, I am honored to be asked to pray for your daughter, REX RAY.
I will keep vigil this evening and into the night for her sake, that the Good Lord helps her.
All healing comes from God.
So sorry to hear she is suffering. I know you are worried.
CHRISTIANE,
Thanks for your prayers. My daughter is being treated in their home. As her husband was telling me the details, it tore my heart out when I heard her say, “I love you daddy.”
REX RAY,
I will continue to pray for her. If she has ‘shingles’ also, she is likely in great nerve pain which requires sedation. I had it ONCE so I am sympathetic and hope that her doctors are supportive.
I’m sorry you are so worried. It goes with parenthood. We want our children to be safe and healthy and happy, but we cannot ‘control’ their lives once they are grown, but prayer for them is a way of ‘keeping them in God’s keeping’ and we parents pray, oh my goodness do we parents pray!
CHRISTIANE,
I found out today that my daughter’s husband and son have Covid.
REX RAY,
has your daughter’s husband and son received any covid vaccination at all?
these days, many people are hesitant to have their little ones vaccinated against anything, least of all covid
having known a teacher in a wheel chair with residual polio, I wonder why anyone would not want to protect their children, if the child’s pediatrician recommended it as appropriate for that child (?)
people are frightened of side-effects, I imagine, but there is SO MUCH politically-driven mis-information out there and people are told not to trust the medical community also
sometimes, I think the anti-science movement in support of certain politicians and special interests will have a lot to answer to God for this deliberate mis-information they have delivered to innocent, trusting followers
May God have mercy on the suffering children as certainly their parents never wanted to put them willingly in harm’s way.
I will pray for the family, REX RAY, that they recover fully under the Good Lord’s care.
CHRISTIANE,
My daughter has gone back to work, and her husband and son are feeling much better. Thanks again.
Praise the God Who brings all healing on the Earth!
He hears our prayers and cares for us.