I have been conservative most of my life. I don’t always vote for conservatives. I tend to be fiscally conservative but socially more inclined to what Jesus says in Matthew 25:31-46, when God separates the sheep from the goats for judgement. Jesus rewards the sheep because he says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”  And Jesus curses the goats saying, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

I want to respond to people with grace, humility, and compassion. Instead of legal condemnation and self-righteousness. In John 8”1-11, the religious elite brought a woman before Jesus who was caught in the act of adultery. They asked Jesus if she should be stoned to death as the Jewish law required. But Jesus replied saying “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” The crowd began to move away from Jesus leaving him alone with the woman. Jesus said to her, “Then neither do I condemn you, … Go now and leave your life of sin.” Jesus did not give a lecture on the evils on immorality. He did not judge and condemn her. He did not gossip about her in the temple. He did not hurl insults at her. He simply showed her grace and gave her the opportunity to go in peace and wonder, what type of religious teacher is this?

I’ve been close to Jesus since a small child. My first memory is one morning when I was about three and laying in my bed, I saw a bright amazing light coming in through the window. I got up and pushed a chair against the dresser under the window. Removed all the things on the dresser to the floor. Climbed up on the dresser and lifted the shade. There were beautiful colors covering the sky. It was amazing. My earthly father came in the room and raised the shade higher so I could see more. He explained that it was a sunrise and that it happened every morning.

He left me sitting there. I stayed until the sky turned blue. As I watched the color change, I somehow knew there was a person named God. He painted the sky just for me. Throughout my childhood God would call me to the window to watch the sunrise with him. Many mornings I rose early and went outside to watch the sky changing color. A sunrise still reminds me of the miracles and love of God.

But my life was not always easy. I grew up in Alabama in the 1960s, during the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam war. As a little white girl living in a middle-class suburb, I was safe from the violence at home and abroad. I spent many hours watching events unfold on TV, talking to adults on both sides and trying to understand what was happening.

Many days after elementary school, I would walk to a nearby church and talk to the pastor. He tried to explain things to me from a Biblical perspective, but I always had more questions. I remember sitting at home and reading through the world book encyclopedia. I was 7 or 8 and much of it was too difficult for me to understand. But I learned that the pictures of people generally follow paragraphs about people’s lives. This I understood.

One day while reading another biography, God spoke to me and said he knew all the people in the encyclopedia. He even knew where they were today and what they ate for breakfast. This amazed and puzzled me. The next time I saw the pastor I asked him if this was true and how it was possible to know so many people and even dead people. The pastor assured me it was true and that God actually knew even more than that.

Though God was in my life, my life was not always easy. There were problems in my family. I believe mom had mental challenges. My father loved her dearly but did not know everything that was happening. I often left after breakfast and did not return home until dark. As a young child I roamed the neighborhood for miles and made many friends with storekeepers, librarians, firemen, and Air Force guards. I was the leader of a group of 4 boys. We often took adventures into the woods a few blocks from our homes. We played outdoor games. We enjoyed the freedom children experienced in1960’s suburban America.

I was active and busy but felt unloved at home. I tended to be a loner and made a few good friends. There was turmoil at home. I felt responsible for stopping it. I needed to protect my sister and brothers even when I was young. I was third of four children. My parents were nominal Christians that did not go to church. My father worked at night and slept in the mornings. My mother was not willing to wrangle four kids into clothes, and station wagon for a trip to church. I would get myself up on Sunday mornings and walk the mile or so to church. Some days my dad would pick me up a 12pm. Sometimes he would go with me to the evening service. But mom was embarrassed that the neighbors gossiped about the little girl walking to church without anyone to drive her. Mom forbad me from going to church anymore

. As a small child I was outspoken and held strong opinions. Sometimes this amused adults. Sometimes it annoyed them.  One day at Sears and Roebuck I was drinking out of the colored water fountain. A clerk told me to stop because that was wrong. I told her that I did it because the water from the colored water fountain tasted fresher than the water from the white water fountain. She became befuddled, not realizing that a small girl could lie so effectively. She went to her nearby manager and explained that there must be a problem with the water fountains. The colored water fountain should not taste better than the white water fountain. She was afraid to try it for herself. They had a lively disagreement. My father returned from his shopping and realized what was happening and who started it.
He took me by the shoulder and walked me out of the store. I tried to explain to him that separate water fountains were stupid. He just kept telling me to stop talking and walked a little faster.

I grew up as a Southern Baptist. I was frequently told I would make a good math teacher because I was smart. I made it very clear to everyone that I was not going to be a teacher, nurse, or secretary, supposedly my only options. I would be a scientist or a missionary. And I really didn’t think I would get married. This brought many surprised and strange looks. Some people just shook their heads and walked off, feeling pity for my poor parents.

I never felt comfortable in church. As a teenager and young adult, I visited many protestant denominations. But I always felt wrong. Their beliefs did not seem to include someone like me. I was too outspoken. I would quote Bible verses to dispute what some people said. Embarrassing the people whose beliefs could not be defended from the Bible. I was unwilling to let random men have authority over me and tell me what I should be doing. I strongly and unequivocally believed that no one stood between me and Jesus. I told many church people, that if they had a problem with me, they should take it up with Jehovah. Some did. Sometimes God told me I was wrong and to apologize to the person. Other times God stood beside me and said to keep walking the path I was walking.  

In my thirties, I was divorced from a man God told me not to marry, but I married anyway and deeply regretted it. I worked as a computer programmer making good money. Bought a house. Filled several closets with clothes and shoes. I was a Christian attending church and following Jesus but living my life for my enjoyment. I was celibate for years at a time. But I would grow weary and start dating as secular people do. After six months or so I would return to church and start following Jesus’ ways again.

People in the church believed that I needed to just settle down, get married, and have children. It was difficult for me to explain to people that God was preventing that from happening in my life. Everyone else enjoyed family life. It was obviously God’s plan for everyone. Why was I fighting becoming a good Christian wife and mother. Many people talked to me and tried to help me understand what I needed. On the inside I agreed with them. But I knew it was God preventing it from happening. This hurt me and confused me that other Christians couldn’t or were not able to see God’s plan in my life. It caused me to fight with God, when all the church people thought I was wrong. How could God be stopping me from being the thing that God wanted every woman to be, a good, decent, respectable, church lady?  

It was during this time in my thirties, when I was celibate for several years. A rumor started at work that I had an abortion. Many people believed in the rumor and spread it to my family and organizations outside of work. So many Christians felt that it was obvious that I was the type of woman who had abortions. They did not speculate on how I remained celibate. They speculated on how many abortions I had. I fit the poster picture of those women who did those things.

I worked at an insurance company, A church attending man printed off an abortion claim and forged my name on the claim. He copied it and passed the claim around the building. Someone showed me the claim. I noticed that the birth date, social security number, and address were not mine. I searched the computer and found the original claim. I took the claim to management. The church attending offender was sent home for a week without pay. We later discovered that another man started the rumor to focus attention away from himself. He recently insisted that his wife and girlfriend both have a abortion after becoming pregnant close to the same time.

But the damage was done. For years I was the single woman who had affairs and abortions. I received a phone call from a church couple, a deacon and choir member who had known me for years. They blessed me out on the phone for doing such a horrible thing and living such a sinful life. I told them it was not true. It was a rumor spread by badly behaved people. But the church couple did not believe me. I finally told them not to call me again and hung up.

A few weeks passed and the woman called me back. She said that the wife of the man who told them the rumor had been praying. She felt very strongly that God told her the rumor was not true. Since this woman was a decent married, stay-at-home mother and church lady who believed the rumor was not true, the couple also decided to believe the rumor was not true. They did not apologize to me for committing the sins of judging and condemning me or not praying to God for guidance before calling me. They simply wanted me to know they had changed their minds. I said they had hurt me deeply during a difficult time in my life and it would be sometime before I was ready to resume a relationship with them. Please don’t call me anytime soon.

There continued to be church people who assumed I was promiscuous. There are multiple statistics on the numbers of Christians having abortions. It is not isolated to people outside the church community.  The church has spent many years trying to change the laws to prevent abortion but have often neglected to ask God about helping Christians who might be making bad decisions. When the church does not know about abortions inside the church or how to reduce the number, how can the church fix what is happening outside the church?  God knows why people inside the church chose an abortion and how to reduce the number. But has the church asked God for help? The American church has a long history of blaming those outside the church for the sins of society and ignoring the problems inside the church.

Many assum I am one of society’s problems because I never fit the church’s mold on how to be a proper church lady. There are other people who may not be Christians but are searching for solutions. The want to help but don’t know the power and wisdom of God. The church frequently criticizes these outsiders. What if the church spent enough time with God to be trusted with his power and wisdom? What if we could show outsiders the power and wisdom of God? Would we be willing to invite the outsiders into our churches? To learn for themselves who God is.   

As Jesus said in Matthew 23, the teachers of the law and Pharisees, the temple rulers, the elite studiers of the scrolls, were white-washed tombs. The cup was clean on the outside but full of greed and indulgence on the inside. God knows everything. He knows who assumes the mold of a good person compared to who steps away from the mold and follows Jesus. The two are not the same. Being a Christian is not about fixing society. It is about following Jesus and letting him change our hearts and souls. Then sharing the love of Jesus with others. It is about reaching out to the hurting and troubled people in the world and learning to walk beside them and through God’s help show them how to walk a better path. How to walk with Jesus.

Much of the conservative church has spent decades working to fix American society by creating and passing laws to make people behave like Christians, whether they are or not. There seems to be a deep-rooted belief that we can use the law to make everything right. To fix our problems.  If only we can control the political process and get the right people in the right seats, then conservative Christians will change this country and possibly even the world for the better. The law has become the way to get what we want and need or what we think God wants.

In ancient Israel, God tried the same thing. He wrote the perfect law. Telling people how to behave. How to treat each other: family, strangers, orphans, widows, leapers, and everyone else. God told them to write the law on their doorpost. To write it on paper and tie it around their arms or foreheads. To read it to their children. Study it day and night. When the people lost sight of God’s law, God sent judges, prophets, and kings to tell the people what to do. To put people back on the right path. The path God commanded them to follow based on the law. God is perfect in all he does. The law was perfect because God created it just for ancient Israel in their time and place in history. But the perfect law failed to make the people behave the way God wanted.

The people lost their way time after time after time. They could not become what God wanted. They did not have what was necessary to follow the law or God. The law was perfect and the people failed. If the law of God cannot get people to behave then why do we believe the laws of America will make us a Jesus following, godly country. How will human made laws make us pleasing to God?

There are many good and decent people in American churches. People who truly love Jesus and want to follow him. There are people outside the church who follow Jesus but do not feel comfortable inside the church. They do not fit the mold. But overall, the conservative church has lost sight of Jesus, his power and his ways. Instead, the conservative church has turned to politics and government leaders to save us from the evils we see. We have replaced Jesus with an idol called politics and all that entails.

When people do not agree with our political opinions, they receive death threats and hate mail. They are called stupid names. When blatant lies are spoken by political leaders, we laugh and shrug our shoulders. When political leaders say their enemies should be killed, we continue to follow the political leaders. Congress has become dysfunctional because they cannot stop fighting with each other. They struggle just to pay the bills and keep the government running. Deep fake mems are created for the opposition and spread fervently across social media. When news media are sued for lying, we continue to watch.

Mass shootings occur too frequently. Mental health issues are everywhere. We are unable to have reasonable debates. We fight and yell. We accuse each other of atrocities even when the accusations are proven wrong. We lie. We bully. We believe and spread conspiracy theories with no attempt to determine the truth.

Where is Jesus in all this unbiblical behavior? The Bible says that what comes out of a person’s mouths is what makes us unclean because it is what is in our heart. What is coming out of so many conservative Christians mouth is angry vitriol. Jesus is not in our hearts or minds. If he was, such things would never come out of our mouths.  

Politics, laws, governments, power, and everything else will not fix this country. Jesus died a horrible death on the cross so that we can be forgiven our sins. But he did more than that. He rose on the third day and sits at the right hand of the Father. Jesus is the King of Peace. He is the one who knows everything. Every problem. Every solution. He knows years before a mass shooting occurs, who needs a Jesus following Christian to come beside that person and help him walk a better road. If only you will ask God, who in your sphere of influence needs help. God will show you who, and how to help. God knows everything that mass shooters need to find a better road, a better life. God will share this information with you. You only need to ask.

Jesus understands why people feel anger and hatred for others. He knows how to change the human heart. He knows how to plant the seeds of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control into every heart. He knows how to water the seeds. How to provide sunshine. How to prune the trees to provide more fruit. He is the great gardener. He can show you how to plant one piece of the fruit of the Spirit and create an orchard of fruit trees to share with others.

He knows how to talk to over 8 billion people simultaneously. Calling each person by name. Showing each person love and comfort as though they were the only person that mattered.

He knows their past, present, and future. He knows what they need. Who they need. When they need it. He is willing to give them everything they need. All he wants in return is a loving relationship with him. A willing heart to trust and obey him.

God is willing to bless each of us. He is willing to lead us. To teach us. To comfort us. To show us how to become a solution following God’s plan. There is no one we can truly trust except God, the three-in-one God of Jehovah, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He is the truth, the life, and the way. We need to let go of our hope and reliance on other ways and other people and turn back to God. It is not the people outside the church, but the people inside the church that need to focus on Jesus. Learn to put him at the center of everything we do. He will change us and the world around us in ways we could never imagine. People outside the church will notice the change. They will come to the places where Jesus is loved, listened to, and followed. But it starts with committing to Jesus, Trusting and obeying Jesus. Nothing else will work. We must give up everything and get right with Jesus. There is no other way.

To change American for the better, each Christian must begin to walk a life-long journey with Jesus. Everyday pray and read the Bible. Everyday ask Jesus what about my heart? What about my sins?  What would you change inside me today. What should I put down or pick up? Who should I help and how should I help? Only God knows what you need. What you family and friends need. What strangers on your street, workplace, and community need. Only God knows what you are capable of doing, to make the world around you a better more Godly place.

Matthew 7:7-8 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.