Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

We glorify wealth, strength, and fame. We take people who already have those attributes and lift them higher as our leaders, our examples, our heroes. We like a take-no-prisoners attitude. We like the rough and tumble cowboy who dusts himself off after a fight and takes on the next challenge with little concern over who was injured moments before. Then Jesus comes along. We rush to see him at the courts of the Temple, turning over the tables of the money changers and running off those selling animals for sacrifice. Then we turn a blind eye to all Jesus had to say in regard to leadership, violence, peace, and the attitudes that God prizes. We ignore the character and attitudes he prizes among the disciples and his categorization of what he wanted of those who would lead and be at the head of the mission of spreading the reach of God’s Reign on earth. Jesus called common men to follow him as disciples charged with learning, retaining, and transmitting his teachings and embo...

A pastor with a national platform just announced that evangelicals voting for a certain candidate have "sold their souls to the devil." 1- The gospel is not partisan. 2- No political party or politician owns the gospel. 3- No two Christians believe everything alike. We are called to lives of transformation, not some static definition or litmus test of faith. 4- Politics is messy. Democracy is the art of compromise when it works at its best. Demonizing a party, a platform, or those taking a political position is an exercise in writing off people for whom Christ died. 5- As a pastor, I don't expect all my congregants to vote the way I do. I would hope that over the course of our lives we would be so transformed by Christ that we would actually change the way we vote, think, believe, and interact with others. Being faithful believers does not mean we are all on the same page. It means we are seeking to follow Christ Jesus more closely today tha...