Christianity and Politics – Part 6 (..power cont..)

In my post on Abraham and Power I tried to three ideas across. (1) The Christian must first, before considering politics and power, notice God as he passes us by in the here and now. It will not be obvious. Usually it happens in stables, sometimes you’ll see him preaching in the middle of the desert, and other times he will come when you are sleeping on a rock or standing next to a tree. Usually it doesn’t happen when you expect it. (2) You must worship the one you see. He will never be what you first expected. (3) You must serve him.Here I want to flesh these three points out a bit more. Internet Monk has a great sermon on noticing God.  Do we really even notice God in our everyday lives?  Do we really pray like God can make a difference?  Let me ask a more pointed question: Do we even think prayer makes a difference in the eyes of God?  I was reading an article on peace, and was thinking, do I really even desire peace?  We have to, as the shepherds in the fields that night, notice the choirs of angels all around.  If we want to make a difference in the political world with power, we must first notice the power of God already at work all around us.  It is something bigger than us, but we can certainly attempt to embrace it as part of our lives.Second, we must worship the God who stands in front of us.  I dedicated a fair amount of time to worship earlier last year, and I will not rehash those comments here.  Abraham fell to his feet when he saw him.  What else can we do when we come face to face with the living God?  Power comes when we are willing to let him use us by falling at his feet.  This leads to the third and important aspect of service.Many Christians stop at worship and never serve the God they love.  Serving God is about more than not breaking the rules.  Serving God is about knowing God intimately and wanting to be his hands and feet in the world around us–in spite of the dumb things we have done.  This means serving the poor, the weak, and the alien.  Consider this as we enter into the question of power and politics in our next post.