ELECTIONS...?

***Disclaimer: This blog, this one specifically, does not reflect the opinions and stances of the leadership and staff and council members of the spider lake church. it is absolutely the conviction and the view of the writer and the writer alone. Any comments, complaints, disagreements should be brought only to the writer of this blog, which is me, David Teran. It is also not an attempt for any political conversation or argument or discussion. It has no political agenda or any other agenda of any kind. it is merely, again, what i believe God laid on my heart. Thanks***

ELECTION???

What’s really going on???

It has been the craziest season of election and political turmoil in the last few months. I need not say anything else. All things have been said. All sides have spoken their views and thoughts. All parties have gone back and forth, and sadly, both you and i have been a part of it one way or another, whether posting other people’s posts, creating our own, or commenting on everything we see on all the social media sites.

But, what is truly going on?

People are asking for prayer for this country. People are worrying, fretting, going overboard with fears and anxiety, the atmosphere charged with uncertainty, hopelessness, despair, etc.

People are making statements like “i’m leaving if so and so wins” or “if so and so wins we are doomed” or “there’s no good choice” or many other statements that let us see into how and what we believe.

But as we were at our prayer meeting last night @ the Spider Lake Church i couldn’t help but feel irritated and uncomfortable. WHY, you might ask.

This is why.

As we were praying, it was as if, (and this has been going on for a while now as I hear people say what we need to pray for and how we see this whole situation) we feel or think that this situation can be fixed with a miracle, or that somehow God needs to come and fix this in a “magical” sort of way. We don’t know how. We have no idea. But we are hoping and praying that maybe God will, in some “hocus pocus” kind of way just come in and save the day!!! WHAT THE HECK ARE WE THINKING? WHY DO WE EVEN THINK THAT THIS IS THE WAY THAT GOD WOULD MOVE? WHY DO WE PUT ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY ON GOD TO FIX THIS? OK, YES, I AM GOING TO GIVE YOU THIS POINT…HE ALONE CAN DO IT. WE HAVE NO POWER WITHIN US TO DO ANYTHING. WE HAVE NO POWER TO CHANGE ANYONES’ HEARTS. AND AS WE LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES AND THE PEOPLE RUNNING FOR OFFICE AND THEIR CAMPAIGNS AND EVERYTHING RELATED TO THIS ELECTION WE REALIZE THAT YES, WE NEED A CHANGE OF HEARTS! BUT EVEN THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ACCOMPLISH IN AND OF OURSELVES!!!!

So, what is truly going on? As we were praying there last night, God shared with me, I believe, that we are very deceived in the way we are looking at this whole thing. And that is the BIGGEST PROBLEM WE ARE FACING IN AMERICA, OUR LIVES, OUR FAMILIES, OUR SOCIETY, OUR WORLD TODAY!!!

We have forgotten to really look at where the problem lies. We are so busy blaming each other, finding fault in everything else, blinded by pride and arrogance and a lack of conscience and honesty.

Really, brothers and sisters, the problem lies in one thing and one thing only…OUR HEARTS!!!

We have forgotten God, have taken him out of schools, allowed for murdering of our babies, allowed for our freedoms to be taken, our morals to be erased, our values to be compromised, our families to be infected with lies and deceit, etc.

Now, you might say “aren’t you being a little hard on you or on us”, and you might be right. I am being hard. First of all on myself. I am so prideful and arrogant that I refuse to take ownership of my own faults and sins and lack of commitment and lack of gutsy attitude to stand up for what I believe and know and confess and declare with my words that is right.

I spend so much time talking about it at church, in my group of “safe people” to share with, or thinking about it, but very little time living it out, allowing it to change me from the inside out, and transform me.

And what I am talking about is THE WORD OF GOD.

The problem that we are facing is due to us, our decisions that we have made everyday. This is not something that just happened overnight. This is a problem that has been brewing for decades, for generations, as we have slowly forsaken the holding on to the word of God, allowing it to change us, to mold us, to teach us, to discipline us, to guide us, to transform us, etc. YES, we preach it from the pulpits, we blog about it, we post cute quotes online, we share it here and there as a cute thought or as something to make us feel good about ourselves, put in on t-shirts, signs, cards, etc. But very few of us are actually living it out, experiencing its power everyday of our lives, and we can see that reflected in the condition of our world today. We marvel at the hatred, the turmoil, the division, the murders, the injustice, the bitterness, the quarreling, the rapes, the cheating, the deceit, the divorce rate, the pornography and double lives lived by so many, the indifference, the lack of attendance in our churches.

But why do we marvel at these things?

We have allowed for all of this to happen. It is our fault. We are reaping what we have sown.

And this is what I am referring to about what God spoke to me last night about.

We are hoping for some miracle.

Hello people, God doesn’t work that way.

He didn’t even spare His own people Israel.

When they sinned and walked away from Him, he brought judgement. Loving judgement. I am not calling for judgement for this nation. I AM NOT SAYING WE NEED TO PRAY THAT GOD WILL JUDGE THIS NATION. The judgement is already upon us regardless of anything. That is the way God works. Like I said, all we need is to look at scripture and know that when a nation departs from God, judgement will come. He is A RIGHTEOUS JUDGE. His word says that.

So, stop thinking we are going to escape the consequences of where we have gone and what we have planted. No, we won’t.

But this is not the point. He is in control. We know that. We know that whoever wins it is of no surprise to him. He already knows. Again, if we go by His word, it says there that he sets up kings, establishes leaders and rulers and he also takes them away and brings them down. This world, this nation, belongs to Him. So, don’t worry about who will win tomorrow. He already knows, and he is the one that decides that. Not you and me. We don’t know better. We could be praying for Trump to win and God might want Clinton there. “How could he want that”,  you would ask if you are a republican or conservative. We could be praying for Clinton to get in and God might want Trump there. Again, you might ask the same question if you are a liberal or Democrat. But, hello???How arrogant have we gotten that we assume that we might know what’s better for this nation???

Do you see how useless and deceived this kind of thinking is?

I might get in a lot of trouble or step on a lot of toes, but reality is, we need to look at the WORD of God and what it reveals about the character of God.

He is more interested in the hearts of his people, and where we have wandered and gone so far off to.

So, if we do this, then we can take a look at the history of the world and how God has dealt with these situations.

Every time Israel would sin he would discipline them. He would bring other nations to subdue them, to enslave them, to take them captive, etc. He would bring other nations to plunder them, to kill their people, etc.

When they disobeyed in battle he will allow for other nations to beat them, to rout them, to capture them, etc.

When they offered the wrong sacrifices, when they tried to do things their own way, God came hard on them and rebuked them, admonished them, corrected them, disciplined them.

So how can we think that he won’t do that to us? He loves us people!!! And like every parent that loves their children will discipline them and lovingly punish them when they’re disobedient and rebellious, so will our Father in heaven. Now, that is also in His word, isn’t it? So I am not giving you any new wisdom, cause I have none. All I am doing is looking at his word and allowing it to speak to me and hopefully to us.

What else can we look at?

Well, that when a nation was being addressed by our Father about their situation, specifically about their rebellion and disobedience, their response was very important. What were they going to do with what God was presenting to them?

And that is what God shared with me last night. Examples of nations’ responses and the outcome of that response.

Let’s take Sodom and Gomorrah. What happened there? An admonition, a call to repentance, a warning and a sentence was given to them. They were brought to the knowledge that God was not happy with their lifestyle and he told them to repent. What did they do? IGNORE IT. REJECT IT.

And what happened? BOOM!!!! You can read it for yourself.

Another example: Pharaoh and Egypt. Result? Same.

Another example: ISRAEL time and time again when the didn’t heed God’s word and call to repentance. What was the outcome? Slavery. Exile. Death. Hopelessness. Punishment. Defeat. Destruction. You name it. Read it. Go ahead. Take the time to explore these things.

Now, what happened when they did hear and heed His word and his call to repentance?

Let’s look at some examples.

NINIVEH – Jonah and the whale, remember? Yes, they were naughty, a very naughty nation. But when they heard the warning, when Jonah told them what was going to happen, what did they do? HERE IT IS PEOPLE, THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS BLOG AND WHAT I BELIEVE IS GOD’S MESSAGE TO US TODAY IN THIS NATION AS WE LOOK AT THE NEAR FUTURE…THEY REPENTED!!!!!!!!

YES, THEY REPENTED. THEY HEEDED THE WORD OF THE LORD AND REPENTED. THEY FELT BAD ABOUT THEIR SINS AND LIFESTYLES. THEY ACKNOWLEDGED THEY HAD DONE WRONG. THEY HAD A SPIRIT OF REPENTANCE.

Brothers and sisters, what we need in this nation, in our lives, is God to bring a spirit of conviction, of repentance, of godly sorrow over where we have gone, over our lifestyles, our choices, our decisions, our compromises, the way we have forsaken his word, his ways, and have traded the beauty of His gospel and the meaning and power it is meant to have in our lives as we embrace its truth and have embraced instead a philosophy of fatness, of comfort, of compromise, a gospel of pride and arrogance, where we are comfortable and safe, unwilling to suffer, sacrifice and yield to his will in our lives. We have accepted satan’s lie that tempted us to want to “be like God” or “become like God”. WE have bought the lie that somehow we know better than God what’s best for us.

And if we do not pray and ask God to bring this spirit of conviction, godly sorrow and repentance to our lives and to our families and our country and world, then we will continue to see these things rise and fear the worst.

The example God brought to my heart last night about this spirit of conviction and repentance came from the story of King Josiah in 2 Kings 22.

If we are serious about His word and that word being powerful, then read the story and see what happened.

I’ll tell you a quick version of it. He was in his 18th year as a king, and in a mission he had sent some of his people to fulfill, they found the book of the law. He didn’t know what it said, so someone read it to him. What happened next is what I BELIEVE NEEDS TO HAPPEN IN OUR INDIVIDUAL LIVES FIRST, THEN OUR FAMILIES AND THEN OUR NATION AND SO ON AND SO ON.

VERSE 11 “ WHEN THE KING HEARD THE WORDS OF THE BOOK OF THE LAW, HE TORE HIS ROBES!!!”

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THIS IS AMAZING. THE KING ASKS GOD “WHAT’S UP WITH THIS?”

AND GOD SAYS “I AM BRINGING JUDGEMENT UPON THIS NATION ACCORDING TO EVERYTHING THAT SAYS IN THERE”

SO, DOES IT LOOK LIKE GOD WITHHELD THE PUNISHMENT FROM THEM? KEEP READING THE STORY

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE READ THE STORY ALL THE WAY THROUGH CHAPTER 23.

VERSE 25 OF CHAPTER 23 SAYS THIS “NEITHER BEFORE NOR AFTER JOSIAH WAS THERE A KING LIKE HIM WHO TURNED TO THE LORD AS HE DID – WITH ALL HIS HEART AND WITH ALL HIS SOUL AND WITH ALL HIS STRENGTH…”

So, brothers and sisters, the answer is not anywhere else but in coming before God and allowing his word to convict us, to allow His spirit to bring us to a place of repentance and godly sorrow for how far we have fallen away, and to ask him to help us experience a new hunger for His words, his laws, his decrees, his commandments and for the strength to follow them everyday of our lives, and to end the compromise we have made with the world and with the enemy.

We need to come back to God. And that will not happen with a “hocus pocus” magic trick. It will happen when we, as Josiah did, allow His word to penetrate deep into the most intimate parts of our souls and let it rip apart the kingdoms we have built so that he alone has all say and control in our lives.

THERE’S HOPE FOR OUR NATION – HIS NAME IS JESUS!