Dear Editor,
Most of us have, over the years of our life, noticed that good intentions can get way off track. I would like to direct your attention to a major derailment in our society today.
There have been some groups formed over the past few decades that have had some very good intentions. Their intentions have led to a lot of confusion because the motivation and direction has been misguided. What these groups have attempted to do has not been accomplished because their focus was blurred by a wrong desire.
Let me list a few of the groups. There was the Moral Majority that has become a fading minority. There was the Religious Right that offended many. There was the Christian Coalition which birthed today’s Christian Conservative movement. There is the Right to Life organizations and also what we know today as the Tea Party.
These groups would lead you to believe that they are Christian at their foundation. I beg to differ on this assumption. These groups are political entities that are using church based, grass root efforts to moralize America through the vehicle of governmental polices.
My friends this is not the Christian Mission given to us by Christ our Lord and King.
The Christian mission has never been a movement to moralize the world. The Christian mission was not established to overtake a governing system. The Christian mission has been to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God and our King Jesus.
The groups fore-mentioned are trying to moralize the United States into the Kingdom of God. Individuals come into the Kingdom one at a time through Christ. We are not going to turn an immoral, self-centered, majority ruled, governing system into the Kingdom of God.
The Christian Mission is supposed to draw the lost of our world, and there are an overwhelming majority that are lost, to our King Jesus and into His Kingdom which is not of this world.
Yes, the Christian still lives in this world but he/she is no longer a part of this world as they used to be.
The Christian has surrendered his life to Jesus the King. He has not been called to go out and moralize the world. He has been called to take the message of a non-worldly King and His Kingdom to those around Him.
For some reason we think we can save America through moralization. God’s Word says we can save persons, one at a time, through the foolish preaching and teaching of His Good News.
The reason it’s foolish is because people don’t understand what God is really doing. God is not going to save America. He will though save John, Joe and Sally if they hear the Gospel and turn to the Lord their God and King. If, or when they do turn, God can, through Jesus’ cross work, make them right with Himself, give them a new Spirit of holiness, and work in them to conform them to Christ-likeness.
Maybe I’m wrong in my analyzation of these self-tagged Christian groups, but it seems to me they are far more interested in moralization through government and religion than salvation through Christ Jesus. Maybe this is why they are not witnessing the desired outcome from all of their hard work.
Pastor Thomas R. Swain
First Church of God
Great Bend