Christian Citizenship - Stained Glass

Where do you get your information & what do you do with it?
- News to pray for
- Verifying the story, getting to the facts
- Digging out what needs to be known
- Filtering out what’s not an eternal priority
What do we do with bad laws?
- Our country was founded on the fact that King George was being a tyrant – we tried to communicate, then we rebelled
- As we insist on regulating certain things (smoking) then we also set precedent for other regulations (Christian speech)
- As we insist on certain rights/freedoms (God in School) then we also set precedent for other rights/freedoms (gay clubs & covens)
- Daniel & Revelation warn us that the world will become absolutely contrary to God, and we’ll have to choose whether to obey God or Men (Acts 5:27-29)
- Nazi Germany and other Oppressive Regimes (actually oppressive, not just distasteful to the whiney)
- Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego give us an example of dealing with bad laws – when they cross the law of God, we simply follow God and accept (or leave to Him) the consequences
Do Christians have rights? When/How should we assert them?
- Paul as a Roman had the right to a citizen’s trial
Balancing between Wing-Nuts & Holy Knot-Heads
- We are in the world, not of it
- Jesus prayed that we would be held secure through it, not taken out of it
- We have a responsibility to be salt & light to a world spiraling further into demonic control, as examples and rescuers to as many as we can before God says ‘enough!’
- We mustn’t become ‘so heavenly minded that we’re no earthly good’, nor can we afford to be so focused on the policies of this world that we forget to rescue the perishing
- Everything we say & do can & will be used against us in the court of public opinion, Satan’s well skilled at that – let us not give him more ammunition to embarrass the name of our Lord
How do you choose your leaders?
- Tradition (my family always voted for ~this~ party)
- Party Line (we’re good / they’re bad)
- Popularity (who’s got Oprah’s vote, or Dobson’s?)
- Studying to find the best for the job (or the least bad of the choices)
- Prayer (God looks on the heart & told Samuel to anoint David)
Where is your actual citizenship?
- America is our country, but Heaven is our Home
- God establishes kingdoms & gives thrones to whom He will, for His purposes
  - Habakuk & the chastisement of Israel
  - David vs Absolom, Solomon vs brothers, Moses vs Korah & company
  - The overnight fall of Babylon to the Medes & Persians

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