Fellow Jesus-followers, we're entrusted by God to proclaim the gospel & live it out in holy fear, bold faith & Christlike love in a crucial era. To do so, we have to see, address, repent of the unfaithfulness to Christ within our own ranks. Idolatry has destroyed our credibility.

It's vital for us make a life practice of reading & rereading the whole Bible because it helps us see what God has characteristically found most pleasing & what He's found most offensive. My Bible reading has me in 2 Kings 17. He's just handed his people over to the Assyrians.->

He'd told them over and over to have no other gods. Their allegiance was to one Lord. Instead of looking to Him for protection, provision, propagation, favor, blessing, etc, they struck deals, made alliances and put themselves in the position to owe allegiance to worldly powers.

I'm not talking to people who check a "Christian" box. I'm talking to Jesus followers. We cannot maintain prophetic witness w/leaders if we're tangled up in deals with them & any means to a pro-Christian end. THEY ARE NOT OUR KEEPER. The Lord is our keeper. We must be set apart.

Whether this presidency or the next, whether we're Republicans or Democrats, we have to keep clean lines between us & worldly leaders & agendas. We're meant to speak truth, counsel, encourage, issue stern warning about evil & injustice but we're not to form alliances with them.

Don't tell me this is unrealistic in this day. Take that up with God. He's the one wildly offended by idolatry, by our deal making so our agendas are served. We who are in Christ are dependent on Him alone. We don't scratch the backs of worldly leaders so they will scratch ours.

We bow to Christ alone. We respect government authorities, pray for them, abide by the law, pay our taxes, cast our votes. But we keep clean lines/owe no favors. Our allegiance is to Jesus only so that when it comes time to speak, we haven't sold our voices to the highest bidder.

The kingdom of Christ will outlast this world. That's where our treasure is. The most crucial thing we can do to serve this world lovingly is to be faithful to our one and only King. 2 Kings 17:41 - "They feared the Lord but also served their idols. Still today, their children...