Hear me say this: Those outside the church are not your enemy. We like to baptize our sinful tendencies in spiritual language and inflate the issues we have with other people, elevating those problems and giving those people more credit than they’re meant to have. The co-worker who gives you a hard time, the neighbor whose yard is a nuisance, the parent or sibling who belittles you at every turn - they’re fellow sinners who need victory just like you did. And if you try to use Jesus’ name against them like some sort of magic formula or secret weapon, if you start praying Biblical prayers against them asking God to crush all your foes and triumph over your enemies, God will not go before you in that battle.
We especially need to remember this in an election year. We can view people who sit on opposite sides of the political fence, even people who oppose things that are good and godly, and make them the enemy. They’re not the enemy because they’re more like us than we realize and, frankly, because the ultimate battleground is not Capitol Hill or who gets appointed to the Supreme Court, but in the hearts of men. Ultimately, the battle’s not out there, it’s in here. When we take the fight to those people and try to vanquish them, it rarely ends in God’s glory. It usually ends in us demonizing people who need Christ. I fear too often it’s the way we talk about politics, not necessarily our politics themselves, that are the true barometer of whether or not we understand the victory which Christ has won.
Sound Election-Year Advice
From Karis Elder Aarik Danielsen's message this past Sunday: