“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’” (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV).
In any war, it is important to know and understand who the enemy is, and it is crucial for the soldiers to know what their objectives are. The soldiers who are ignorant of these two considerations can waste energy by attacking the wrong targets or by participating in military campaigns that actually hinder the army’s main objectives. From the far-left to the right-wing extremists, many Christians in the United States are fighting the wrong battles, or they are fighting the right battles but for the wrong reasons. Satan loves politically focused “Christians” who have neglected the gospel because their perverse political distraction has made them forsake the ultimate work of the Kingdom of God. What are the main objectives of Christ’s church, and who is the true enemy?
Two major purposes of the church are to equip and strengthen Christians and to proclaim the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. These two purposes can be viewed as the mission “in” the church and the mission “of” the church. In the church, Believers are trained to be disciples of Christ; Christians are taught God’s word, transformed by the Holy Spirit, and empowered for ministry. Then, the equipped and empowered saints of God perform the mission of the church; they go into the world and preach God’s saving message, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.)And He gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:10-13 NASB). When Believers are equipped and empowered, they then present the gospel to the world.
“Now I make known to you, brothers and sisters, the gospel which I preached to you, which you also received, in which you also stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). God’s church is directed to present the gospel to the lost; God did not call his church to enforce the political agendas of men. There is no political ideology that is perfect, and there is no politically based message that can bring salvation. The lost need the message of Jesus Christ, left-wing or right-wing propaganda or ideologies will not save anyone. There is nothing wrong with a Believer holding a political stance, but for the political Christian extremist, their political party has replaced Christ as the Lord of their lives. Their blasphemous adherence to politics has caused them to vilify the lost.
The “Us vs Them” mentally of politically charged Christians is not pleasing to God. The Lord does not want us to classify any group of people as unworthy to receive the gospel. And we should not look at any group of people as being less deserving of God’s grace; all men are on their way to hell apart from Christ. The enemies of the Christian are not people, we fight against Satan and his spiritual kingdom. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). When Christians believe that “those people” are their enemies, the lost are seen as people to separate from, persecute, and condemn. And instead of reaching out to the lost with the gospel, politically focused Christians murder their political opponents in their hearts and disdain the very thought of reaching out to them with the love of Christ.
Believers must understand that the mission of the church is to reach out to “all” people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of dueling with the lost in political arenas, Christians must vigorously fight with Satan in the relm of the spirit. To consider a group of people as unredeemable is to insult the grace of God and spit on the sacrifice of Christ.
Grace and Faith Ministries 