A Pastor’s Thoughts; A Challenge

Having been raised in the great state of Maine, I grew up in a predominantly white, middle class suburban neighborhood. It was a great neighborhood, in a great town, and a great upbringing; I was more fortunate than most, but there was a God-shaped hole in my heart that I never realized was there. 

When I was 23 years old, I was hit with the truth of the gospel. I had never put much thought into God, my existence, or anything of that nature. From what I can remember, I was never in pursuit of God – no striving after the Almighty, no care for the eternal, just living my life. 

The truth of God just sort of hit me. I was sorry for the way I was living, and the Word of God that still echoes in my heart whenever I find myself taken back to that moment in my life is Romans 10:8-10, “But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” – that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” 

I was given a new life, made into a new creation. Not long after that moment I became obsessed with the One I was now at peace with, even God the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Now that I knew God, I wanted to know more about Him. I was simply overwhelmed. I spent many nights searching His Word, burning the midnight oil in my pursuit of Him, holding on to every word and fascinated with every detail, like a newborn that opens his eyes for the very first time.

A few years later, however, something happened to me that also happens to many of us who come to the faith, if we allow it. My infant-like faith in the Lord, and the feeling of His presence in my life, becomes overshadowed by politics, and my zeal for the truth becomes misdirected and shifts downward to a lower ebb: partisanship, opinion, the border crisis, COVID, masks, vaccines – all the hot topics of the day, which I allowed to cause me to see everybody in my life through a political lens, rather than as those who so desperately need the truth of the gospel, as sinners for whom Christ died, and a lifestyle from which I myself was redeemed.

Did not Paul say himself, in 1 Timothy 1:15-16, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.” 

It is easy to stand there, condemning the world and everybody who doesn’t know the truth; one doesn’t have to be Christian to do that. If given the opportunity, I would go back to a time in my life before I became politically aware. There’s something about that innocence, that “new faith” time in a believer’s life where sin was simply sin, and needed to be dealt with through Christ – not politics – that allowed me to see people without a tainted lens, through the eyes of Christ, unstained by the way of the world and the ugly thoughts that come by it.  

So it is my challenge to all, as we walk out our life of faith, to not let our minds become as the world’s but to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, into the mind of the Almighty. It is not a political message we steward, it is the message of redemption, hope, and peace through Jesus Christ.