It’s General Election week in the UK!  In my devotion this morning I read how Jesus wept as He entered Jerusalem. What He saw moved Him to tears. When the Apostle Paul came to Athens, we read that “he was provoked in his spirit, because the city was given over to idols.” (Acts 17:16) What should we weep for, and be grieved about, in our nation?

Here’s an extract from a brilliant article by J John on “The cross and the ballot box” about what we “evangelicals” (= bible & Jesus believing people) should consider weeping about:

… evangelicalism gives its adherents, whatever their ethnic background, a sense of being guardians of a decent society. Evangelicals have strong and thought-through views on culture and society and we also have grievances. Let me list some of them. We universally lament the rise in house prices, which, by forcing both partners to work, has put pressure on marriages and families. Even before the present financial crisis we were unhappy about a culture that had come to elevate the manipulators of funds and movers of paper above those who actually made things. We are angry when we see the poor suffering because they cannot afford proper health care, dentistry or decent schools. We are irritated by a culture that has become so shallow that it glorifies sports and media celebrities rather than those who work tirelessly to help others. We are baffled and saddened by a national ethos that elevates the banal and the trivial over the worthwhile and the lasting. We are exasperated by a political culture that wants to see the results of faith but doesn’t care for faith – as if fruit can be produced without a fruit tree. We are aggrieved by the way that almost everything is now apparently controlled by shareholders for shareholders. We are sick of spin, of empty words and of manipulated statistics. Perhaps, above all, we find ourselves infuriated at the way in which, with morality side-lined, politics has become dominated by nothing nobler than a seedy, short-term, must-please-the-voters hypocrisy.

Friends, lets weep, and then vote…

I trust that if you live in the UK and are a Jesus follower, that you will be committed to showing up well this week in prayer, and on Thursday with your vote if you have one. that If you missed my message on “God, Government & You” this past Sunday, you can listen here – In it I cover:

1. The legitimacy and limitation of civil government
2. The King’s Agenda
3. Your call to show up well.

Part two this next week…