"Who Would Jesus Vote For?"

For all of you who are wondering who to vote for next week, I figured the most helpful thing to do would be to cut through all political promises and mud-slinging and get to the bottom line. Let's just ask the question: Who would Jesus vote for? (About this time I imagine some of you are getting a little hot under the collar and others of you are thinking that it is about time I said something--I have a feeling I am going to disappoint you both).

Would Jesus register as a democrat or a republican? Would he put an Obama or a McCain sign in his front yard? I think that's a pretty good question to ask just days away from election day. The problem is I am afraid that Jesus will end up doing what he seemed to do best when he was here on earth: He will end up offending people on both sides of the party lines.

That's what we see Jesus doing in John 6. Here's the setting...Jesus has just finished feeding 5000 men plus women and children with 5 small loaves of bread and two small fish. Talk about a great political move. He's just had 5000 + people hearing his speech on what it means to have God's kingdom come on earth and then he led it to all culminate with not only making the promise but meeting the need. Well, you can imagine that Jesus was rating high in the popularity polls. In fact, Jesus knew it. That is why we see Jesus do what is recorded in John 6:14-15, "After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, 'Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.' Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again into the hills by himself." You see the people misunderstood the kingdom of God. They were convinced it was to be a political revolution in which the Messiah would overthrow the Roman government and reestablish the throne of Israel.

Over 2000 years later, God's people seem to still be looking for Jesus to do the same thing. We want a Christian nation. Our hopes for our nation seem to rise and fall based upon the legislation in favor or opposition to Christian values. We are determined to force Jesus to be king. But Jesus showed us that he was not interested in being king of a nation. He was and is interested in being King of individual lives that make up the Church through whom he plans to usher in heaven on earth.

John 6 continues and Jesus explains this. He says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me" (John 6:56-57). In response the people, who hours before wanted to elect him king, now say, "This is a hard teaching who can accept it? " (John 6: 60) and many of them walk away from Christ.

Ask Jesus who he would vote for and according to this chapter of the Bible instead of getting an ear full of political information, Jesus would say that we who call ourselves Followers of Him are to be more concerned with how we live than who is elected. I guess we would call Jesus un-American (of course, he was not American, though we tend to forget this) because he would not appear to be nearly as concerned with who is in office as he is with who is in at the center of our personal and corporate lives as the Church, His Body. To feed on Christ means we eat of his love so much that we love him with all ourselves and love our neighbors as ourselves.

Wait a minute? Am I saying Jesus does not care if Obama or McCain is president? Am, I saying Jesus would not want us to consider wheather we vote per our morals or the economy? No...I am not saying a word on that simply because Jesus apparently did not think it was important enough to give time and talk to it. Instead, when he was offered the throne of a nation he said all he was interested in was being in the throne of our personal lives so much so that wherever we go, whomever we meet we are ushering in God's kingdom here and now.

The hope of our nation does not rest on the next President of the United Sates. The hope of our nation rests solely in Jesus Christ and that hope is made reality each and every time a person turns form self to Christ and each an every time a church turns from self-service to others-service. And each time that is allowed to happen, Jesus said it is like a mustard seed. No matter how small of a beginning it has, it will grow and grow until it becomes the largest plant in the garden. And when God's kingdom is growing through the hungry being fed, the sick being cared for, the oppressed being freed, the hated being loved, the prideful being humbled, the spiritually lost being found...then it does not matter who is President...because where Christ is King no man or nation can stop heaven from coming on earth.

I am Chad Current and I approve this message!