A few thoughts for your consideration.
God’s priorities should be our priorities.
The problem we who are followers of Jesus face is the frequency with which we allow earthly kings, princes, business interests, and the like determine what is priority. We will distribute pixels innumerable arguing over items God’s Word never mentions. Then, we head to the polls in hopes of propelling someone into power whose positions are every bit as problematic as the idol worshiping Hebrew kings of old.
This is madness.
I do not believe we can “vote in” the kingdom of God, and the last 30 years has made it clear voting His morality is hit and miss. But we can recognize things more closely aligned with God’s agenda than others. We should strongly consider those things without pretending corporate tax havens or free birth control are commended in the book of Jude.
God is very concerned about saving people from every nation, tribe, tongue and language.
That is God’s plan. What is God concerned with making great? His name among the nations. If God is after the souls of men, women, boys and girls from every corner of the globe, then we should question any foreign policy that troubles that end. What policies will make it more difficult for missionaries to move between nations? More difficult to reach still unreached peoples? Make it more difficult for unreached peoples to get to the gospel?
War as a matter of policy is questionable.
War is a tragic, perhaps even inevitable component of this fallen world. When war is threatened we should pray for diplomacy. When war comes we should pray for its end. But let us not take on the demonic demeanor of cheering the loss of 10s of thousands to hell for our own temporal comforts. Or even our own personal freedom.
God has something to say about nations and their greatness.
Please consider the following from the book of Isaiah:
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand or marked off the heavens with the span of his hand? Who has gathered the dust of the earth in a measure or weighed the mountains in a balance and the hills in the scales? Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or who gave Him His counsel?
Who did He consult with?
Who gave Him understanding
and taught Him the paths of justice?
Who taught Him knowledge
and showed Him the way of understanding?
Look, the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered as a speck of dust in the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust. Lebanon is not enough for fuel, or its animals enough for a burnt offering.
All the nations are as nothing before Him; they are considered by Him as nothingness and emptiness.
God is enthroned above the circle of the earth; its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like thin cloth and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He reduces princes to nothing and makes judges of the earth irrational. [Isa. 40]
The nations are a drop in the bucket. They are considered as a speck of dust. ALL THE NATIONS ARE AS NOTHING BEFORE HIM. That includes the United States of America, and has since 1776.
What does all of this have to do with voting?
For those who are followers of Jesus? Everything.
The mission of God does not take Super Tuesday off. Every part of our lives should be consumed with it. We are sent, as He was sent (John 20:21).
Every act of our lives should display God’s glory. When we step into the voting booth we have the opportunity to express our faith that God is working all things after the counsel of His own will.
For the followers of Jesus voting is not foremost about being a good citizen or exercising our rights. Voting, like all other decisions, is an outflow of the working of God in our lives. It is our witness in the temporal sphere of a God who reigns eternally.
