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One Vote Counts
An election year is a period when all the Democrats and all the Republicans devote their time and energy to save the country from each other. It is often hard to know who to vote for in that many candidates have straddle sores. Their purpose is to stay calm, cool, and elected.
With all the faults of our system it is still the best in the world, offering many of the best qualified people to serve. There are many wonderful candidates deserving our encouragement and support. We should be thankful elections are by ballots not bullets and we count the returns, not the remains.
The two candidates for President have positions on each issue. Do you? If so, vote for the candidate whose positions and yours are most alike.
A person who is a one issue voter needs to consider they thereby are supporting all of the other issues espoused by that candidate. Therefore, a one issue voter really isn’t a one issue voter.
Why vote? Because your vote counts and can actually be the determining vote. Former President Eisenhower said, “The future of the Republic is in the hands of the voter….” In this statement he noted two great truths. First, our form of government is a Republic, not a Democracy. After all, in our pledge of allegiance it is to “the Republic for which it stands.” Second, the importance of the individual voter is brought into focus. It has often been one person that decided an election.
Adolf Hitler won the leadership of the Nazi Party in Germany in 1923 by one vote.
One vote gave the Presidency of the U.S. to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.
In 1776 English, not German, was made the official language of America by one vote.
One vote gave control of England to Oliver Cromwell in 1656.
France was changed from a monarch to a republic by one vote.
By one vote the Pope was declared infallible.
By one vote Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Texas were each admitted to the United States.
The trend in America has been for special interest groups to register their constituency and get them out to vote. Though a minority in society they become a high percentage of voters. Many of these are motivated to vote for people who promise to give them their desires, their entitlements. In most instances that translates as “money.” The government has no money, therefore they must take it from the people who do and give it to those who elected them. It is a modern day form of buying votes. It is simply that the money doesn’t come from the candidates as it once did but from the public. Meanwhile the majority of those from whom the money must come don’t vote. By failing to vote they mute their voice. Their position is reduced by a factor of one.
Edward Everett Hale put the importance of the individual in perspective in these words:
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. What I can do I ought to do. What I ought to do by the grace of God I will do.” We ought to vote. Never underestimate the power of one.
The door of America’s future swings on the hinge of the American voter.
The Choice Is Ours
Are you praying about the forthcoming election? I am. I will leave the result of my prayer in God’s hands. I only know He said “ask.” I want to do my part with confidence He will do His part.
I heard a speaker recently say we should not be concerned about the election result, we will do it all over in four years. True, BUT! What if in those four years something happens and the opportunity to vote has been taken from us. What happens on election day will influence what happens in the next four years, and what happens in those four years will determine the nature of America thereafter.
The speaker to whom I referred defined himself as one who believes God is sovereign and determines destiny. I, too, believe God is sovereign, but in His sovereign will He chose to give human beings a free will.
The Old Testament leader Joshua challenged his people as follows: “… if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24: 15).
In light of that example God may very well be allowing us to choose who we will serve. There is a great disparity of choices.
As the framers of our Constitution exited their assembly Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The question of our day is whether we choose to be governed as we have been by a republic form of government or a socialist oligarchy.
Rather than trying to define the latter I ask that you look at the examples of Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba. Do you really want that? The modern day national Democratic party strongly leans in that direction and if in power will likely seek to lead us there. There are many good patriotic Democrats who do not desire such, nevertheless their party does. The policies they advocate are covert Socialism.
Often we don’t know the value of what we have until we don’t have it. Let us abrogate that principle by valuing what we have as not being perfect, but the best there is.
There is a lot not to like about the candidates of the National Republican party. However, in running from a bear let’s not run into a lion, in this instance the National Democratic ticket.
A person voting for a pro-abortion candidate on that issue alone is voting for the rest of the party’s socialist agenda also. Do you really want that?
Choose Your God
Who is your God? The answer once would have been the Triune-God, that is, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, with the Son Jesus Christ being the representative most people related to more personally.
Today there is a new god in town. Having demanded the expulsion of God from government under the misuse of the declaration our Constitution demands separation for God and government to be separate. It doesn’t. That expression originated in a letter from Thomas Jefferson written to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, where he expressed his strong belief in religious freedom and the separation of church and state, famously using the phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” to describe this concept. The Baptists were concerned that following the pattern of European nations the Presbyterian Denomination was about to make the government sponsored official denomination of the state. Jefferson was writing to insure the Baptists there would never be a denomination made the official religion of the state. The modern usage of the expression is improper.
Currently with God having been removed from government and society in general there is a new god in town. People have turned to the government and celebrities as the new gods. Where previously people looked to the Lord God for guidance, provisions, and protection they now look to the government for those matters.
Dependence on government rather than reliance on God is the new norm. Our country is about to elect a president who will guide our government, that is, our god. May it be the more godly form.
Consider, would you like a government that tells you what car you can drive, what type stove you can cook on, that supports transgender males playing in girl’s sports, finances sex changes, withholds funds from students attending denominational schools, is a proponent of child mutilation, mandates inoculation of members of the armed forces with an unproved vaccine, and wants increased taxes to support their radical agenda? Really!
A representative of such a god, government that is, awaits.
There is an alternative who believes we deserve to be governed like our predecessors by a Constitutional Republic form of government, a government that encourages individual responsibility, traditional morality, and less government.
Where there is more government there is less personal freedom. The best government is the government that governs less.
Some people scoff at the thought this is the most important election of our time. If not, which is?
Joshua gathered his people at Shechem and challenged them: “Choose you this day who you will serve,” Our day of choice has come.
The Choice is Ours
Are you praying about the forthcoming election? I am. I will leave the result of my prayer in God’s hands. I only know He said “ask.” I want to do my part with confidence He will do His part.
I heard a speaker recently say we should not be concerned about the election result, we will do it all over in four years. True, BUT! What if in those four years something happens and the opportunity to vote has been taken from us. What happens on election day will influence what happens in the next four years, and what happens in those four years will determine the nature of America thereafter.
The speaker to whom I referred defined himself as one who believes God is sovereign and determines destiny. I, too, believe God is sovereign, but in His sovereign will He chose to give human beings a free will.
The Old Testament leader Joshua challenged his people as follows: “…if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24: 15).
In light of that example God may very well be allowing us to choose who we will serve. There is a great disparity of choices.
As the framers of our Constitution exited their assembly Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The question of our day is whether we choose to be governed as we have been by a republic form of government or a socialist oligarchy.
Rather than trying to define the latter I ask that you look at the examples of Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba. Do you really want that? The modern day national Democratic party strongly leans in that direction and if in power will likely seek to lead us there. There are many good patriotic Democrats who do not desire such, nevertheless their party does. The policies they advocate are covert Socialism.
Often we don’t know the value of what we have until we don’t have it. Let us abrogate that principle by valuing what we have as not being perfect, but the best there is.
There is a lot not to like about the candidates of the National Republican party. However, in running from a bear let’s not run into a lion, in this instance the National Democratic ticket.
A person voting for a pro-abortion candidate on that issue alone is voting for the rest of the party’s socialist agenda also. Do you really want that?
Who Am I?
Who am I? Have you ever thought about that? How did you get to be the you that you are?
One of the most amazing gifts that God has given is the human mind. The ability to learn, think, choose, and reason is the essence of what makes us human. While the ability to think makes us human, it actually goes deeper. Your thoughts become a reflection of who you really are. God certainly understands this, and He speaks to this in various places all throughout His word.
One of the verses we often quote to back this up is “as a man thinks in his heart so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). You are who your thoughts have made you.
William James, considered by many as the father of modern day psychology, noted the greatest discovery of his generation is that a person can change their life simply by changing their mind. That is good news for we often can’t change our circumstances, but we and we alone can change our mind. It is called out look.
Therefore, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Colossians 3:1-3).
Often people speak of things bearing on their mind. In reality our mind should bear on things.
“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3: 2 – 5). Freely interpreted that means since you are a Christian think Christian thoughts. The mind is the supervisor of itself. As a horse is bridled so the mind must at times bring itself into control of one’s thoughts. Thoughts are either of a “self-ian” or a Christian nature You chose.
Jonathan Edwards taught “The ideas and images (mental concepts) in men’s minds are the invisible powers that constantly govern them.” We think of a thing and then we do it. If you want to change your attitudes and actions, change your mind.
Your outlook is often determined by your input, what you see or hear, often even your hormones.
When you dethrone your ego and enthrone God there is a new monarch.
William Ellery Channing taught, “Secret study, silent thought is the mightiest agent in human thought.” The mind chooses which of those it will feed on and what is fed on becomes the outward action.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).