11 Now may our God and Father Himself and Jesus our Lord direct our way to you; 12 and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you; 13 so that He may establish your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints. 1 Thessalonians 3:11–13
Political seasons bring out the worst in us, exposing so many raw emotions. After the votes are cast and counted and races are called, many silently begin walking through the stages of grief, and others are so giddy, they can barely contain themselves. We’ve all experienced both winning and losing. We’ve experienced the exhilarating joy and suffered through the wrenching gut punches.
It is at these times, we the cohort of Christians, can be a steadying and calming influence, relying on our keen sense of the sovereignty of an Almighty God, exhibiting “good sportsmanship,” even when the stakes have been so high and uncertainty now reigns. This kind of reaction should be automatic in us, since God literally causes us to “abound in love for one another, and for all people.”
It is sinful for me to be in a constant state of antipathy for half of mankind. When we think about our mandate to reach “the lost,” how can we be so predisposed to hate certain people and then reach out to them with the love of Christ?
If you live long enough, you will have developed coping mechanisms for both good times and bad, with leaders you align with or leaders you don’t. It helps to focus on what Jesus focused on. He came into this world to save sinners, a particular calling that does not follow party lines.
It’s hard to fathom the existence of a group of people who can continue to reside in a lost and fallen world, buffeted by evil and ill will, who can still love its inhabitants. It might be that we live with the expectancy of (and pine for) the return of the only one who could successfully pull this off in his “lifetime,” Jesus Christ.
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