When GOV Has Replaced GOD in Our Priorities

If your political passion makes it hard for you to love and respect the person on the other side, GOV has moved past GOD in your priorities. 

I want to challenge you to consider how you think toward people on the other side of the political fence. My purpose has nothing to do with telling you who you should vote for President on Nov 5th, but everything to do with how that vote influences your attitudes and actions towards those who will vote the other party line. As Christians, we must aggressively guard and examine our attitudes towards those who diametrically oppose our own values and convictions. How do we do it? I believe Paul's instruction in Romans 12:9 gives us a hint.

Romans 12:9 NLT Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.

Read it again from the Amplified Bible:

Romans 12:9  [Let your] love be sincere (a real thing); hate what is evil [loathe all ungodliness, turn in horror from wickedness], but hold fast to that which is good.

Love that is sincere and not pretending requires a hate/hold relationship. We are called to hate what is wrong and to hold tightly to what is good. If either of these, the hating or the holding, gets neglected, or if one overpowers the other, it will degrade our attitudes and actions and distort our love for them.

In our current political climate, it seems to me many Christians got the "hate what is evil" down to a science but often fail to "hold fast to that which is good". Sincere love is not either/or but both. Loving someone who holds contempt for you and may even see you as an enemy requires you to both hate the evil in them and cling to the good in them. And when it's a person opposed to everything you consider sacred and true, you have to actively and consciously "hold tightly to what is good."

I have found it difficult to "hold tightly to what is good." for two reasons.

First, that's often not how the other side is considering us. They have broad-brushed stroked and stereotyped us for our political opinions and then treat us the same way they think of our politics: they hate us, they devalue us, or at best they believe us to be naive idiots. And it is so easy for Christians to reflect back the same. We are commanded to reflect Christ, not our enemy, and not the world. How and who are you reflecting?

Second, to "hold tightly to what is good." requires serious effort. When people are opposed to us, it doesn't come naturally to focus on the good in them. But if we're going to love the way Christ loves we must make great effort to find and focus on the good in them and then "hold tightly" to it. What are you holding fast and focusing on? The good in them or the evil?

So then, how are we to "hold tightly to what is good." in them when all we see or know is the wrong in them?

First, don't make their ideas their identity. Resist the temptation to rank a person's political opinions as the most important thing about them. Or to assume their politics tells you everything you need to know about them. To cling to the good is to focus on what really matters about them: their value as humans made in the image of God. See them as a loving spouse or parent even when they degrade and hate you. Respect their passion and ability to articulate their ideas, even though they have come to a different conclusion than you. Resist the urge to think of them as stupid because they are not. The right politic is not based on IQ but values and ideologies. Fight and focus on their value, the good in them, and cling to it. That's what love is, that is what love does.

Second, be honest with your self-evaluation and whether are you thinking and loving them as Christ commands you. If you are not proactively clinging to the good in them then you're hating more than holding. Would you talk to them that way if they were your son or daughter? Do you extend them the same grace you would if they were your father or mother? The Boomer generation was raised in a culture that approved a lot of racist ideas but it would be wrong to judge and lump them all as racist bigots. They were a product of their times and so are we.

Be more clingy in your interactions with those opposed to your value system. Fight the urge to reflect their attitudes but love them deeply from the heart. Hate what is evil but don't forget to cling to that which is good. "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21