...if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
-2 Chronicles 7:14

God can heal our land. He made it...he can heal it. So, also, can he heal us as a people; sick with convolusion and misguidance. Lately, I find myself in these conversations that start out as a well-meaning endeavor to apply Jesus to our country and our world, that, ultimately, degenerate into political discussions surrounding the current US Presidential election.

Many believers allow their political views regarding this year's election to effect their spiritual priorities and how they see eachother.

People really get heated. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is your political affiliation the standard by which you are deemed presentable or unpresentable to God?
• Are you more or less annointed because you are conservative or liberal?
• Is God a Republican? Democrat?
• What is more important to you right now? Ensuring a liberal or conservative is in the white house or reaching as many people for Christ as you possibly can in this short life?
• Once you discover that another believer has opposing political views, do you secretly or even overtly harbor offense and judgement; retracting grace?
• Is your church a campaign commercial for the dominant political view among your congregation?

Do not misunderstand: You should be very interested and concerned about who is leading your country. We still live in a great nation, where we can exchange ideas, worship and exist as we like. As individuals, we are as sovereign as any system of government can allow without infringing on the civic sovereignty of another citizen. It is brilliant. However, what we are, right now, is nothing close to what we were intended to be. We live in an era of growing darkness.

So, yes, vote...vote with conviction and purpose; vote because it is your right; vote because many have perished to preserve that right. However, as we do, I would suggest that each of us enters into that action with a heart of humility and contrition.

We should genuinely seek the face of God through prayer; allowing him to direct us, individually. We should realize that God has billions of children...billions...that are not Christians yet. Oh, just imagine what could happen if we, as a body of believers, took a fraction of the zeal that we have for our political convictions and applied it toward advancing the Kingdom at the deckplate level.

At the end of the day, sin is our mutual enemy. We all suffer; we are all tempted and tested; we all have the same choice of fates.

Regardless of our voting record, let's agree to elect Jesus the ruler of our lives, every day. Let's allow him to determine our priorities. Let's look at one another through his eyes. Let's resolve to put Kingdom before country. Most of all, pray; pray for mercy and grace. Every time we do, we cast our spiritual vote in the favor of God's will; which is what we should all really want, right?

-T. Michael Cart