How will you vote?  The London mayoral elections? Trump or ? Brexit or staying in? ANC or ? The next Philippine president? What to do about Zuma?

In many parts of the world we get to vote and how you vote is a huge question, but let me encourage us – these who call ourselves followers of Jesus – to WEEP BEFORE WE VOTE.

In Luke 19v41, as Jesus is nearing Jerusalem, we read:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it…

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 cities and nations?

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 you are a Jesus follower, that you will be committed to showing up well with your vote if you have one.

If you need some Biblical wisdom on the role of government, have a listen to this message from our “God, Government & You” a while back. This is part 2 of the series:

Friends, however you vote, please weep before you vote…

^{Jeremiah 29v7} And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”