Faith, Freedom and Christian Allegiance

We believers must keep our priorities in order:

Christians say that Jesus alone is King. And they are certainly right in this. But too often we can live as if we do not really believe this. We can put other things – even important causes – ahead of our full devotion to Christ alone. Only he is Lord and worthy of our complete attention and obedience.

All this can get tricky, because there are plenty of vitally important things we must be involved in. The big three – faith, family and freedom – are certainly among them. I have fought for all three for many decades now. And I will continue to do so. But we must keep things in perspective.

Just a few hours ago on the social media the well-known Christian freedom fighter Monica Smit posted two very important things. The first was a 75-second video in which she unburdened her own soul. She said she prays all the time, but still, she had forgotten to pray about the big political fights we are now in.

She said, ‘I have forgotten to pray for politicians and for positive political action.’ She said she has been doing some soul-searching here, and it is ‘egotistical for us, for me, to think we can fix anything without the help of God’. She is absolutely right in this.

And shortly thereafter she posted these comments:

I’m sorry!!!

My commentary about the 31st August event has been all over the place. I made a video and deleted it. I initially promoted it, and deleted those posts too!

It’s such a tough situation. I’m torn. I support people’s freedom of expression, but the event stinks and has caused the most division within the freedom family I’ve ever seen! That can’t be a good sign.

From a PR perspective, I stuffed up big time. The trolling and comments got the better of me on this occasion, which I’m embarrassed to admit.

All I know is my gut is trying to tell me…if it stinks this bad and is causing this much division, it can’t be a good thing.

If a friend called me and asked if they should go, I’d say “no way, stay away”. I need to stop flip flopping and be straight with myself, and you, and not be a coward fearful of hateful comments.

I’ve never claimed to know all the answers, and on this occasion, I’ve been a terrible person to look to for advice.

Please forgive me. I will reflect on this and try not to make the same mistakes again.

I ‘liked’ her post instantly, and I made this comment:

I greatly appreciate your transparency and humility here Monica. Very few folks will ever publicly admit to being wrong or being less than perfect. And August 31 is indeed a very tricky issue, with various groups out there who will hijack the event for their own ends – some worse than others. So plenty of prayer and wisdom is needed here as to what individuals should do. But you have led the way in this by your example of public humility and seeking forgiveness. Keep up the good work and keep staying on your knees. It is the best place to be.

As to the August 31 marches that are being planned, I too have had real concerns about what might transpire, and how groups that we do NOT want will take over the event and give us all a bad name. Neo-Nazi groups DO exist, and they do want to hijack events like this. That will not help any of us as we stand for freedom.

And as I said, freedom is a very important social good, so we must keep the pressure on politicians and governments that are warring against our freedom. We must bear in mind (without being glib or getting the emphasis wrong here), that at the end of the day, even freedom is not the highest good.

If it were, prison would be the greatest evil. But it is not. We recall that some of the greatest ministry times the Apostle Paul had was when he was confined in prison. He could even write epistles celebrating the joy of the Lord – such as Philippians – while in a Roman jail cell.

So do not get me wrong. I will always fight for freedom, and fight against those who are intent on stripping it away from us. But some things are even more important, with Christ being our only true absolute. Trying to get all these priorities right is always a struggle, but we must keep working at it and praying over it.

In sum, Christ comes first – always. However, he HAS called us to be salt and light in this world. He has called us to see his Lordship extended over all areas of life. So we should keep fighting for things like marriage and family. We should keep fighting for things like the sanctity of life. We should keep fighting for things like resistance to tyranny and secular statism.

But all this must come under our total devotion and commitment to Christ as King, first and foremost. And it must come only when undergirded with, and soaked in, prayer and intercession.

Something I shared on the social media last week nicely dovetails with the great example young Monica just demonstrated today:

If you want some of the best advice I can offer as an old guy who has been a Christian for 54 years now, it would be this (and I wish it was drummed into me as a new believer):

Three things to never stop doing (and they all go together):
-stay on your face before God
-stay humble
-stay teachable
You will not go far astray if this is your normal Christian life.

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