Matthew 21:23-27
New International Version 1984 (NIV1984)
23 Jesus entered the temple courts,
and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came
to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who
gave you this authority?”
24 Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will
tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 25 John’s
baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or from men?”
They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say,
‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ 26 But
if we say, ‘From men’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John
was a prophet.”
27 So they answered Jesus, “We don’t
know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these
things.
The pharisees were so caught up
in politics that they could not answer a question on their own but had to
discuss it amongst themselves and try to come up with the best answer. The problem was, they couldn’t come up with a
politically correct statement so they gave no answer at all. Does that sound familiar? I believe when the founders of the United
States of America wrote the constitutions, they had a pretty good idea that
politics muddies the waters and decided it would be better to separate politics
from religion. They didn’t intend on separating
from God as individuals but they didn’t want to become like the pharisees and mix
politics within the church. They
depended on God for their wisdom, strength, and power.
I once heard a statement by a well-known
Christian radio who was talking about the persecuted Christians in other
countries and how our government needed to step in and help them out. He said it was a “no brainer” policy that
needed to be put in place. As much as I
want to help the persecuted church, it was my thought that it was not the
government that needed to be involved but rather the Christians around this
world, praying for those who were being persecuted. Sometimes I believe that we fall short in the
category of prayer. We tend to use it
for our own personal well-being and we depend on the government and money to
take care of the larger scale needs. I
actually had a group of ministers laugh at me when I suggested that we pray
regarding a money issue. They all had
probably preached on how to depend on God but when it came to a money issue they
felt cutting a budget was more of a solution than taking to God in prayer. It made no sense to me why they would chuckle
at this suggestion since God said that “He will supply all our needs” (Philippians
4:19). Politics, we find it in our
churches today and it will only increase when we fail to take our prayer life
seriously. When we grow closer to the
Lord we will tend to look more at Him
and less at what the crowd wants. We
have become “crowd pleasers” rather than pleasing our Lord and Savior and it is
time to change that.
My prayer is that our churches
will become more focused on what the Lord has to tell us and less on what the
world has to tell us. Seek Him with all
your hearts, that you may know Him and His power which is far beyond anything
that any human or government can supply.
Seeking Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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