Blinded By Love

Have you ever been so in love that you missed many red flags flying right in front of your face?

When I was in my early 20s, I began dating a girl I would eventually become engaged, and later un-engaged to. We had a lot in common and a long history of friendship together. However, there were a few core differences in our worldviews that from time to time would cause some major disagreements. But, I loved her and really wanted to get married, so I chose to focus on the positives and explain-away the rest.

During that relationship, I alienated myself from my best friend, who, like my family, could see the red flags I was unwilling to acknowledge. He was the best friend I’ve ever had, and the best friend I’ve ever lost. So much heartache ensued from me loving my then-girlfriend more than godly counsel. Proverbs 12:1 has something to say about that.

Similarly, over the last several months I’ve been seeing many red flags in American Christendom. A concern has been growing in me for American Christians who seem to have fallen in love with this or that political candidate, particularly those candidates that claim to be Christians. Supposed followers of Jesus.

When you listen to these bearers of the Name speak, particularly in debates or in their speeches, ask yourself how many of their words are filled with boasting, arrogance, envy, jealousy, rudeness or selfish ambition. Why? Because according to the Bible, their words will tell you a lot about their motives and what their faith is actually in. Their words reveal red flags to those who are willing to see.

Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. (1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ESV)

But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. (James 3:14-16 NASB)

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. (1 John 2:15-16 NASB)

In my undergrad, my homiletics professor Dr. Brooks once said, “When we’re bumped we spill what we’re filled with.” Throughout the campaign trail, we get to see the candidates bumped over and over again. If we’re willing to take off our rose-colored glasses, we get to see men and women who are attempting to be the most powerful person on the planet reveal what is really in their hearts.

Cyprian was the bishop of Carthage in the middle of the 3^rd century CE. He was a wealthy lawyer until he heard the gospel message. When he surrendered his life to Jesus, he literally sold all of his possessions and gave the money to the poor, just like the opportunity Jesus gave to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19. Cyprian wrote this about the connection between our words and our hearts:

“Holy Scripture meets and warns us, saying, ‘But he who presumes and is haughty, the man who boasts of himself, who has enlarged his soul as hell, shall accomplish nothing.’ … Exaltation, and puffing up, and arrogant and haughty boastfulness, spring not from the teaching of Christ who teaches humility, but from the spirit of Antichrist. … By his mouth, therefore, and by his words, is every one at once betrayed; and whether he has Christ in his heart, or Antichrist, is discerned in his speaking, according to what the Lord says in His Gospel, ‘O generation of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.’” (Cyprian, Vol. 5 p. 602-603 [CD-ROM])

During this heightened political season, I want to encourage you with the words of Psalm 146:3 (NASB) to, “not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.” Instead, put your hope in the Lord, in whom there are no red flags. Love King Jesus more and more. For, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting Himself to Him who judges justly (1 Peter 2:22-23 ESV).”

Tertullian on Christians Seeking to Rule in Government in 200CE

Mindful of this rule, we can render service even “to magistrates and powers,” after the example of the patriarchs and the other forefathers, who obeyed idolatrous kings up to the confine of idolatry. Hence arose, very lately, a dispute whether a servant of God should take the administration of any dignity or power, if he be able, whether by some special grace, or by skillfulness, to keep himself intact from every species of idolatry; after the example that both Joseph and Daniel, clean from idolatry, administered both dignity and power in the attire and purple of the prefecture of entire Egypt or Babylonia.

And so let us grant that it is possible for any one to succeed in moving, in whatsoever office, under the mere name of the office, neither sacrificing nor lending his authority to sacrifices; not farming out victims; not assigning to others the care of temples; not looking after their tributes; not giving spectacles at his own or the public charge, or presiding over them; making proclamation or edict for no solemnity; not even taking oaths: moreover (what comes under the head of power), neither sitting in judgment on any one’s life or character, for you might bear with his judging about money; neither condemning nor fore-condemning; binding no one, imprisoning or torturing no one. Now, is it believable that all this is possible? …

Now by this time, you who argue about “Joseph” and “Daniel,” know that things old and new, rude and polished, begun and developed, slavish and free, are not always comparable. For they, even by their circumstances, were slaves; but you, the slave of none, in so far as you are the slave of Christ alone, who has freed you likewise from the captivity of the world, will incur the duty of acting after your Lord’s pattern. That Lord walked in humility and obscurity, with no definite home: for “the Son of man,” said He, “has not where to lay His head;” unadorned in dress, for else He had not said, “Behold, they who are clad in soft raiment are in kings’ houses:” in short, inglorious in countenance and aspect, just as Isaiah in addition had fore-announced.

If, also, He exercised no right of power even over His own followers, to whom He discharged menial ministry; if, in short, though conscious of His own kingdom, He shrank back from being made a king, He in the fullest manner gave His own an example for turning coldly from all the pride and garb, as well of dignity as of power. For if they were to be used, who would rather have used them than the Son of God? What kind and what number of weapons would escort Him? What kind of purple would bloom from His shoulders? What kind of gold would beam from His head, had He not judged the glory of the world to be alien both to Himself and to His? Therefore what He was unwilling to accept, He has rejected; what He rejected, He has condemned; what He condemned, He has counted as part of the devil’s pomp.