Articles
Who Do You Elect?
As you read the newspaper today, I’m sure you’re learning all sorts of information regarding the mid-term elections that took place yesterday. Some of us are likely to be very pleased and others very disappointed regarding the results. However, are these the most important elections of your life?
I appreciate the resurgence of Americans embracing their civic duty/right to vote for the leaders of our communities, state, and nation. These elections are extremely important, however, they are not the most critical one. There’s one election that we make every single day that’s of the greatest importance.
As the book of Joshua comes to a close, Joshua is making a final appeal to the people of Israel before his death, but he’s not campaigning for himself. As the Israelites often did, they elected to do the wrong thing as a nation with regularity. Joshua then says in 24:15, “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
An election is a fancy word for making a choice. Joshua makes it plain to his fellow Israelites the choice was theirs to make. In that moment, the Israelites took Joshua’s words to heart and said in verse 16, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods” and recounted all the blessings they had received from the Lord.
While we may have multiple options to choose from at the polls, there are only two choices when it comes to our spiritual allegiance. Are we going to elect obedience to God or not? Like the Israelites did in this instance, and like we do at the polls, we have to weigh our options and the questions are similar: Who’s the better leader? What’s our end goal? What do we want to see for the future of our children?
The Israelites elected to serve God that day, but they would have to continue to make that choice. Often times they didn’t. They elected to be like other nations and they did forsake the Lord, and dark times came. However, God remained available for the choosing and made a path for not only the Israelites but for all creation to choose Him through the giving of His son, Jesus. That’s where John 3:16 comes in.
When we choose God, it doesn’t stop there. It actually comes full-circle – He then chooses us. Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Let’s elect to serve God! The other candidate will ultimately lose (Hebrews 2:14-18)!
