“The Lord is King, the Most High over all the earth”

4 – The Power to Govern

Let me be perfectly clear: Jesus doesn’t need our permission or our votes or our approval to govern the earth.  He is already the King. He was born a King on Bethlehem’s plain. The government is upon His shoulders. All authority has been given to Him.

So why am I comparing Jesus’ glorious kingdom to some sleazy political campaign?  Those two entities seem like such polar opposites.

The thing is,  we live in a physical world. Our world is dirty and gritty and often sordid, and a great many of its inhabitants are dirty and gritty and downright nasty, not the least of which are some of our career politicians, and the folks that push their detestable agendas. Like it or not, politics is the process by which we decide who we’re going to listen to and follow. Politics decides , from a human perspective, who has the power to govern.

So hear me out:  Our country has recently been through a number of bruising presidential elections, and for better or for worse, the winner in each case clearly walked away with the power to govern. The loser was given no such power, and really had no recourse but to return to the private sector. You all know what I am talking about.

So winning an election isn’t incidental. When it comes to governing, at least in a democracy, winning an election is everything.

Throughout history, in our world, absolutely nothing ever got  done in the absence of a clearly defined leader or head of state. Sometimes a leader  comes  into power by conquering and subduing  a nation, and sometimes a long established monarchy is able to hold on to power.  But the best kind of rulers, in many cases, are the ones who have been intentionally chosen by the very people seeking to be governed. King David was a perfect example of this. (Read 2 Samuel 5: 1-5).

As Christians we know that Jesus Christ is High King of Heaven. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega.

But on earth, sad to say, he only has about 30% of the vote.   And that is just not enough to rule on earth. We Christians want him to govern, and he wants to govern, but until he wins some sort of universal popular acclaim, he has to work behind the scenes in the private sector. (Of course, he could easily conquer and subdue the earth, but he doesn’t seem inclined that way.)

I believe that Jesus is fully aware of this reality. When he set up his special little kingdom among his tiny group of original followers, he basically told them to do two things:

1. Live your lives as if I am your king. (Which I am!)
2. Spread my gospel (which includes my governing principals) over the entire earth.

To me, that sounds a lot like a political party campaigning for its favorite candidate. I don’t mean to be crass, but why should we continue to lose ground when we could be gaining ground just as easily?

I don’t know too much about running a political campaign, but I know that one of the first things, and probably the most important thing, is to get the word out. Print up the campaign literature and pass it out everywhere, particularly where the candidate is not well known. Take his case directly to the people. Let them decide by a simple vote whether or not they want him as their leader.

This question constitutes the main theme of these essays: How is Jesus going to get seven billion people to come to him and ask him to be their ruler?

It is my small uninformed humble opinion that the world’s Christians should begin focusing more energy into printing and shipping individual copies of single gospels (possibly through the use of national postal services) to virtually every country on earth, especially to those countries where Christianity has no vital presence. I am not talking about gospel tracts, or how-to books. I am talking about printing the entire gospel of Mark, for instance. Or Luke or John or Matthew, printed in the language of the country of destination. These small booklets are no more than 50 or 60 pages in length and are easily read and understood by normal intelligent people.

For all I know such a mailing campaign is being carried out by lots of individuals and groups all over the place, in other countries and continents. I certainly hope so. I’ve made up my mind to join in the effort in my own small way.

I frequently find myself fretting about the current state of our world. The list of modern-day woes goes on and on: Global pandemic. Threat of nuclear war. Climate out of control. Fentanyl flooding our border. Civil unrest and violence in our cities. Schools indoctrinating our innocent children. Corrupt politicians running our world. Artificial Intelligence threatening to alter human life at its core.

Since I suddenly find myself in this increasingly hostile environment, with  my faith and my very existence being  constantly threatened, sending copies of the gospel to families across the state of New Jersey seems like a perfectly reasonable counter-measure.

Once again, I sometimes have a tendency to wring my hands in frustration and pray that Jesus will return real soon. My pastor, on the other hand, recently paraphrased the angels who showed up after Jesus ascended into heaven: The angels said, “Why are you standing around staring up into heaven? You have a job to do!”

“The gospel must first be published among all nations.”

Mark 13:10 King James Bible

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