We are not to be of this world. And our battle is not with flesh and blood! We just seem to think somehow there is such a thing as 'good' politics, and a 'christian nation'. Both those things do not exist under the reign of the enemy.
Do spirit things never manifest in the material (the physical)?
The simple answer to that question is no.
I look at things this way and thanks to both a pastor and then a politician for showing me a little something about this in the debate the other night. If we go into the Bible and actually examine the laws that the new covenant was built on, we'll see that heterosexual immorality was just as bad as homosexual immorality. Yet we don't have prohibitions against the former. All we can do is punish everyone involved in the process (probably the reason Jesus hated divorce so much because it breaks God's will and thereby hurts those involved so much) by presenting the victim spouse with a long and drawn out divorce process. In such a case, the physical is clearly part of the spiritual.
I think your youth - and I'm
not attacking you based on your age because I started this forum in my teens and took many years of "you're to young too know better" myself - is not letting you look at the full meaning of that statement. I was definitely wrong on some things, and Jesus in his great mercy gave me the life experiences to let me see the Bible clearly. This is not a negative statement saying that we're never going to deal with battles of the flesh - on the contrary, life will teach you otherwise. It simply means we keep in mind that the spiritual realm is the ultimate source and that Satan is the ultimate general of evil in the world.
For us Christians, that means not getting obsessed with hating the person. (IE: Recent Obama politics as an example.) It means going after the spiritual and therefore quite often going after the heart of the person. The physical becomes a part of the spiritual battle.
Shep, I'm not sure in what capacity that grieves you but I will offer some commentary on the story. I'm not trying to justify the clapping because I don't believe people in need should suffer (IE: perfect place for the church to step in), but it's not that Americans are generally heartless. We just need for the world to treat us politically correct and understand our culture. Our culture is that you do it yourself. If you cannot do it yourself, your family is next in line. If they cannot, then friends. And still if they cannot, then acquaintances within the community (IE: church!) should do it. Possibly then private organizations, and finally government as a fall back.
I'll match our private citizens against any other nation's citizens in any philanthropist project any day. We truly give like no other.
Unfortunately, government systems tend to be abused in their beneficence, and thus the strong dislike for such systems. That's pretty much a result of one 1) man-made laws structured to be as friendly and forgiving as possible and then 2) the character of most humans' love for money. I actually work for a government-based health system and can attest to the abuse of the system. Many needy and deserving folks are helped, but others simply use the system to get out of working. I've seen people rip off braces as they've left the building with my own eyes. I've seen others with a cane, lean over quickly to pick up a coin they dropped or tie a shoe. I don't want to go further into my work than that, but I've seen far worse.
Christians need to be in everything but sin (themselves). Christ was a friend of sinners (and if ya think politicians are sinners, just substitute words for a moment there). He ate with the tax collectors (and even had one as his disciple!) and they bear a remarkable resemblance to our politicians. The thing is, if nonChristians saw a large block of Christians committed to the service of their God in the form of truly pure service to the community...well how is that not going to be a spiritual victory?
That juxtaposes with the current landscape of character assassination and hate. Politics is by nature, evil. All men, are by nature, evil. Yet there is grace in the form of Jesus. It's easy to love your brother, but much harder to love your enemy. The whole city on a hill thing.
