Well today’s the day. It’s the day the commercials stop, the mail gets lighter, your text messages go back to being from people you know, and you can get back to arguing about sports and who shot the biggest buck this season. While I don’t live in the States (though I am a U.S. citizen and voted from abroad), I understand why we get so excited, and even worked up about elections. Who our leaders are is a big deal. They have the power to shape many things in our lives, communities, and nation. They can do things that improve our lives, and unfortunately even things that make them worse. As Americans, we have the right and privilege to choose who leads us, a right many have sacrificed dearly for over the past nearly 250 years. So yes, today is a big deal, and a day we should take seriously and be in prayer for.
There is a choice in leadership that is significantly more important than who leads our communities and nation, and that is who leads our lives and eternities. This is a big deal in two ways. First, it is vitally and eternally important for us to confess Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives. We need to confess our sins to Him, knowing that He will forgive us and gift us eternal life. That’s the biggest and most important decision we will ever make, because it is an eternal decision.
There is, however, another decision we need to make, and that is to make Jesus the leader of our lives every single day. The reality is, some days we “vote” for Jesus as our leader, and other days we “vote” for the world. We don’t vote with a ballot, but with our thoughts and actions. Some days we align our thoughts and actions with God, and others we follow the ways of the world. Look at how Paul puts this to Timothy:
I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 1 Timothy 6:13-16
No matter who wins today, make sure Jesus is always the leader, the one true King, of your life. Get up every morning choosing to follow His ways in all that you do. Don’t give in to the ways, temptations, and pressures of the world (and, I get it, they are tempting!), letting the world lead you away from God’s ways. Jesus is our King. May we always follow Him.
