At judgment, I seriously doubt if the Lord is going to ask how you voted.
He’s going to ask what you did.
Recently, in the ongoing clamor about the election, some Christians have gone off the rails implying they will one day have to stand before the Lord to give account for their voting record.
I have a single thought about that, and it’s this:
Instead of asking how you voted, the Lord is far more likely to ask something else—something far more incriminating. Something like, “What did you do?”
Let me say up front, I’m not faultless in this regard. I’m a preacher and thus a member of a profession that talks for a living. We are all tempted to say more than we are doing, to preach what we are not living up to yet. However …
I would like to ask a few questions to those who are so dead-set on not voting, for example, for the candidate who endorses Roe v. Wade. I understand you are concerned about the unborn, and thank you for that. I am, too. So I ask you:
Have you ever contributed one dime to a clinic that counsels young women about pregnancies and helps them find alternatives to abortion? OK, more than one dime. Have you ever made a serious gift to help them?
Have you ever volunteered at such a clinic?
Have you ever helped a woman considering abortion to change her mind, then helped her deal with the far tougher decision to carry the child to full term and to place the child up for adoption?
Have you ever adopted such a child?
Just wondering.
I keep thinking of a number of Scriptures that speak to this subject. The first takes dead aim and shoots me and you and the rest of us talkers right between the eyes.
“Your father … administered justice and righteousness, and it went well with him. He took up the case of the poor and needy; then it went well. Is this not what it means to know Me, saith the Lord?” (Jer. 22:15-16)
Oh my. That’s what knowing the Lord means? That’s what he said. (And he should know!) And then there are these:
“My little children. Let us not love in word or in tongue (only), but let us love in deed and in truth.” (1 John 3:18)
“Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:22)
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock …” (Matthew 7:24ff.).
“If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” (John 13:17).
Therefore, I would humbly suggest to those among us who are waging the battle of presidential candidates in the year 2016 that …
If we have done little or nothing to help the cause of the unborn, we should be quiet. Or, we should go down to a clinic that helps unwed mothers and write a check and volunteer to help. Then and only then should we speak. To do otherwise—to speak with force on issues about which we are doing nothing—earns for us that most despicable of all titles: hypocrite.
If we have done little or nothing to take care of the widowed, the orphaned, the jobless and the hungry, we should remain silent when the vote is taken on how much federal money to spend on helping the “least of these.” We are unqualified. Better yet, let us get involved in ministries that care for the needy. Then, we may speak.
Now, if you have done these things and you choose to speak out—which I heartily support, by the way—it is not necessary to preface your remarks with, “My wife and I have adopted a child,” or, “I’m a volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center.” Just be responsible and knowledgeable in what you say. Then, when someone challenges you, as they will and have a right to do, asking what right you have to address that issue, you will have a good response.
Dear Lord, please help your children to get this right.
“Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1:27)
The Pharisees, on the other hand, “tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry, and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matt. 23:4).
So, do you love the Lord? Good. Do you love the unborn? Great. Do you believe in helping the poor and needy? Super.
Now is the time to show it. Put feet to your words, action to your values. As the sneaker company says, “Just do it.”
Then we will gladly hear all you have to say on the issues.
Read more from Outreach magazine on the 2016 presidential election »