Right and Wrong

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

Romans 13:1-2

In America being poor is a death sentence,
in America your pocket book determines
the amount of respect you receive;

in America you either love it or leave it.

Sometimes I think it is forgotten
that this nation was founded by people
who didn’t necessarily ‘love’ being
controlled by a monarch hundreds of miles away;
only instead of leaving
they fought a violent and bloody war,
or that a hundred years later
this nation was literally torn in two
as brother fought brother,
because one side didn’t ‘love’ being told
what to do by the other.

It makes me wonder just who
the real patriots are,
those who blindly accept whatever is thrown at them,
by a government growing increasingly powerful and intrusive,
or those who question every policy and decision?

but to be perfectly honest,
it doesn’t matter to me
one way or the other.

This nation and this government
are only what they are allowed to be,
by a God who created all things,
this nation does not have any more power, wealth or wisdom
than Rome, or Greece, or any of the other great civilizations before it;

like those civilizations this nation exists
only because God wills it to exist.

In colonial days
I’m sure there were preachers within the colonies
who stood up in their pulpits and declared
that those who didn’t ‘love’ being a British colony
should just leave,
just as many religious leaders of the day
branded Washington and other leaders of the revolution
as criminals and traitors,
the difference is Washington and the revolutionaries won;

and winners, not losers, write history.

They won because that was God’s will,
plain and simple,
so you should be careful who you call a criminal,
or who you tell to love it or leave it,
because you just might find yourself
on the wrong side of God’s will;

unless you presume to know more
than God Himself.

So try not to get caught up in
who is right or who is wrong,
try not to take sides
in the affairs of men at all,
seek the will of the Lord first
and trust in Him
without leaning to your own understanding,
and remember His command for us all:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead I have called you friends, for everything I have learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

John 15: 9-17

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