The election is just 3 days away. I have been thinking a lot these past few weeks about the implications of this upcoming election. What does this mean for our country, our economy, etc.? The conclusion I have come to is that it does not matter one way or the other what happens. What I mean by that is that God is sovereign over all things and that of course includes our upcoming election. “Our God is in heaven! He does whatever he pleases!” (Psalm 115:3) Our duty then is to vote, but we need to keep in mind that God himself is deciding the outcome. All government is ordained by God. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” (Romans 13:1). What that means is that we need to be concerned about our country, but we don’t need to be anxious over it. We might disagree with our government, we might not like their policies or the direction they go, but they are still God’s ordained. Our focus instead needs to be on the Kingdom of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, our affections need to be there, not be here in this world. We should not be interested in advocating for political parties, we should be interested in advocating for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who is our true king.
John Piper recently wrote a blog on Desiring God that I think hits it on the head, here is an excerpt (click here for the full article):
“Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. Not to weed your garden is to cultivate a weedy garden. Not to wear a coat in Minnesota is to freeze—to deal with the cold that way. Not to stop when the light is red is to spend your money on fines or hospital bills and deal with the world that way. We must deal with the world.
But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.
So it is with voting. We deal with the system. We deal with the news. We deal with the candidates. We deal with the issues. But we deal with it all as if not dealing with it. It does not have our fullest attention. It is not the great thing in our lives. Christ is. And Christ will be ruling over his people with perfect supremacy no matter who is elected and no matter what government stands or falls. So we vote as though not voting.
By all means vote. But remember: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever†(1 John 2:17).”
Let’s vote, but not be anxious about the outcome. Vote as if we are not voting.
As a side note: As we think about the sovereignty of God over the government, we should have an Old Testament perspective. There were good kings in the Old Testament and bad kings, but God is still sovereign and ultimately, our King is Jesus, not matter who is elected on Tuesday.
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