By Bunni Pounds

Recently I was at a festival representing Christians Engaged – having great conversations with hundreds of people and asking people to take our PLEDGE to pray, vote, and engage for the sake of our nation.

Next to me was a man who was making salsa and selling it to the festival goers. He was fun and we instantly hit it off.

At the end of the day, the “salsa man” waved his hand for me to come over. This poor man had had to listen to me ALL DAY give the same spiel over and over again about the importance of our Christianity impacting our voting patterns.

He said really boldly – “Young lady, I am not one who believes in God. I was also not too happy this morning that I was stuck next to you all day. I thought – this crazy woman is mixing politics and religion. But after listening to you all day, I think I get it now. You are just telling people that if they believe in Jesus that He should influence everything they do – even their civic duties and how they vote.”

I responded – “Wow – Yes!”

He then went on – “I think if people who call themselves Christians really lived out their faith in every area of their lives – I might believe.”

I was blown away that this man who didn’t even know God had more wisdom than many people who call themselves Christians. He understood discipleship and the call of God on my life to disciple people and to help them live out their faith. By the way, I shared the simple gospel with him and invited him over for dinner as well.

This is the point.

Christians, we can’t say we believe in God and then walk into the polling place and throw our Christianity out the window – voting for people just because we think they are nice or we want to have a diet coke with them. We must make these critically important decisions on who we vote in as our elected representatives with the mind of Christ and submitting our decisions to His Lordship.

Is Jesus really Lord of our lives when it comes to our civic duties? 

Do we leave Him at the 100-foot marker and walk into the polling place without even considering the principles in His Word?

Here are the biggest issues in my mind when it comes to Christians’ voting habits and the problems we are facing in our nation. We must be a part of the answer, not part of the problem. You know that and I know that – but how do we communicate it to a flood of others?

Here are the keys to shifting our nation – at least in the governmental realm.

We are Biblically illiterate as a nation, and we need to know the Bible.

Let’s start by reading it!

When only 3% of American Christians have ever read their Bibles all the way through, and only 9% of American Christians read their Bibles outside of church, we have a problem in our nation.

How are we supposed to vote the Bible if we don’t know the Bible? Let’s start there.

Then let’s VOTE our Biblical values in every election.

What do I mean by that?

Let’s connect the dots between issues in our culture with the wisdom from the Word of God.

As I said in my article on LIFE being a foundational issue - I don’t believe we should be single issues voters; BUT I do believe that as a Christian who believes in the inerrant Word of God that we have a foundational and clear moral issue in our generation that we must prioritize in our voting and advocacy. When we make the choice between a pro-death candidate versus a pro-life candidate, we will give an account before God.

Are we going to vote for candidates that will protect our children from indoctrination in our schools?

Are we going to vote for candidates that will protect the right to LIFE from conception to natural death?

Are we going to vote for people who will govern well with transparency, responsible spending, and personal integrity as servant leaders?

To know who to vote for – we have to do our research as we have talked about over and over again. We can’t be lazy! We need to live our lives with excellence especially in this area of our civic duties - not only for our families but our city, state, and nation. Many people will be affected by our actions. If we don’t vote as Christians – the wicked fill in the void and that affects all of our lives and the next generation of Americans.

Our responsibility as Christians is to know God, read His Word regularly, be salt and light in our communities, value what the founders have given us in our VOTE, and use this sacred trust asking God for discernment and wisdom in the process.

As President John Quincy Adams said – “Duty is ours, results are God’s.”

Our job is to take Jesus to the ballot box with us regularly and vote Biblical principles. The rest is up to the obedience of the people we elect to serve.

Genesis 1: 26-28 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Revelation 5:8-10 “Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying:

“You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.”

God gave us a command to take dominion on the earth in the beginning and then He reminded us again that at the end of the age – we are kings and priests on the earth.

Let’s do our job well and take responsibility for where we have been planted in our nation. The United States of America is worth it.  VOTE.

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