Churches Now Open to Political Division

Churches can now endorse and contribute to political candidates.

This is bad news. The Johnson Amendment no longer applies to churches.

The Johnson Amendment is a provision in the U.S. tax code, since 1954, that prohibits all 501 non-profit organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. This amendment kept churches from supporting political candidates and keep their non-profit status. The President backed the Internal Revenue Service in a court filing which has cleared a way for churches to endorse political candidates.

This is wrong. No church should EVER endorse political candidates. The pulpit is not the place for politics. This is not the mission of the church. This ruling is going to effectively divide churches even further.

So with this ruling, you will now have Republican churches and Democrat churches. Personally, I will never be involved in church who supports a political candidate - even if they support my candidate.

The church stage should never be a platform for a political candidate of any party. This is not the place for it. Unfortunately our current President has stirred the waters of the evangelical community in pandering their support and has forever changed the church.

What’s next? Sermons about how you can’t be a Republican/Democrat and be a Christian? They have already been doing it but now what held most back has been loosed. This is certainly a slippery slope that the church is sliding into.

When Jesus came, people wanted a political leader but that wasn’t what He was sent to do. He came to establish an eternal kingdom. Political entities are not the savior of the world. The salvation for all mankind has been manifested in Jesus Christ. God knew that our world needed saving long before any national government was ever founded. He demonstrated to the world that redemption could not be accomplished through the power of man, economic strength, military might, or politics. Peace of mind, contentment, hope, and joy—and the salvation of mankind—are provided only through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

Some may see the changes to the Johnson Amendment for churches to be further evidence of religious freedom but is it really? We are dangerously close to churches being controlled by the government. It is crucial that we follow Christ and not a preacher’s choice of political candidates.

We're All Going Through Things

What are you going through right now?  We all get wrapped up in our own problems don't we?

Everybody is going through something.

We may share it with someone close to us or we may keep it inside.  There are times that we think no one cares.  I can assure you that there is always at least one person who cares and understands.  

The Bible tells us that Jesus is well acquainted with what the Bible describes as infirmities.  An infirmity is a physical or emotional weakness. We are all human and we are going to have weakness.  Our lives won’t always go as expected.  

When I walk down the street where I live to pickup food, I pass many people.  People from different backgrounds, different cultures and different problems.  We all may be different but we all still going through something.  

There was a contemporary Christian song many years ago called "People Need the Lord" by Steve Green that says:

Everyday they pass me by

I can see it in their eyes

Empty people filled with care

Headed who knows where

On they go through private pain

Living fear to fear

Laughter hides their silent cries

Only Jesus hears

People need the Lord, people need the Lord

At the end of broken dreams, He's the open door

People need the Lord, people need the Lord

When will we realize people need the Lord?

While God usually doesn’t intervene in our lives in a tangible way, He does still care about us and sometimes He uses others to help us.  He can work through the kindness of others.  It doesn’t have to be some supernatural creepy encounter but just a simple act of kindness.

The second verse of the song by Steve Green says:

We are called to take His light

To a world where wrong seems right.

What could be too great a cost

For sharing life with one who's lost?

Through His love our hearts can feel

All the grief they bear

They must hear the words of life

Only we can share

Small acts of kindness, such as helping someone in need or offering a listening ear, can make a big difference in someone's life.  Helping others, especially those who are vulnerable or marginalized, is a way to show God's love and compassion. 

I will admit that many times I am oblivious and not looking for opportunities to touch others with kindness.  An act of kindness can go a long way.  Let's make that effort to be nice to the cashier at the store, open the door for someone or look for ways to bless others.  While we may have our problems, helping others is a good way to help us in dealing with our own.  

Devices of Distraction

Recently, I was sitting in a restaurant to pick up our order lunch. I looked around and every single person was on their phones.

We are a society addicted to our phones.

I will admit that I am one of them too.

My phone is no doubt my favorite tech gadget and like most people, I take it with me everywhere I go. 

When I was growing up, we had one phone in our house and it was attached to the wall. That’s it. We couldn’t take it with us and it wasn’t mobile. Video phones were something of the future.

And here we are.

Roughly 95 percent of Americans own a smartphone. We spent an average of 4 hours on our phones each day.

Now that we have them, we can’t seem to put them down. Even in family gatherings many are on their phones. We are too quick to pick up our phones instead of having personal interactions with the people around us.

I will say that smartphones do have some positives. We can now carry around small computers with us along with media and information. I will often think of a question and immediately pick up my phone and get the answer without leaving my chair. Access to information is lightning fast now compared to when I was growing up.

And then there is the downside of this technology. We are all glued to our phones when bored, walking, driving or even while talking to others. Our devices can be huge distractions. While we are plugged into the world in our phones we are disconnected with the world around us.

I have tried to be more conscious of my phone usage and make a better effort to put it down a little more often.

Can we make a conscious effort to put down the phone?

When talking to someone, let’s put the phone facedown and talk to the people we are with.

Enjoy walking without being glued to the phone.  I see people walking the sidewalks every day totally focused on their phones rather than walking or looking for traffic at the crosswalks.

Enjoy the moment you are in. We don’t need photos or videos of everything.

Believe it or not we once survived without carrying around phones, tablet or any tech gadget.  The most high tech device we wore was a watch.  Our phones have opened a new world but also become devices of distraction.  Take time to put the phone down and enjoy where we are and the people we are with.