It’s been quite a year, hasn’t it? When embarking on a year with such an epic number as 2020 – the repetition in the very number seems to make it feel important – a number equated with clear eye-sight, the standard for real vision and clarity, I know so many of us thought this year would be incredible. A year of focus, so many chose to believe.

And, yet, what it has brought to every human heart is the understanding that we control so little. When the world shut down, we learned a focus we didn’t know we needed – a focus on our families, the ones within our four walls, a focus on self, as physical contact with others was cut off. If we used it well, this time of intense focus allowed us a clarity we weren’t looking for into who we really are and on whom or what we rely for our security, comfort, stability. We learned, without a doubt, that government can’t save us. We learned that as a nation, as a globe, we can stand together, but we are also so terribly fractured, in many ways that almost feel beyond repair.

And the American backdrop for every calamity this year of 2020 has brought upon us has been what’s happening this week as we elect a new leader for our nation.

As an evangelical Christian – a term I have almost come to despise for what it has come to represent as a political label, yet I still claim for what it literally means – one who believes there is good news about Jesus Christ that needs to be shared – I was brought up in a world that intertwined my religion with a political party. It has come to the point that to be a “good Christian” one must subscribe to a certain agenda and, thereby, any candidate put forth by that agenda – it is our job, as Christians, to make the world live by Christian standards.

Yet, as I look at Scripture, I fail to see that message anywhere located. Not once do I see God challenging his people to change the laws of their land of imprisonment. Not once do I see Jesus rally his people against the oppression of Roman rule. In fact, he very much disappoints many potential followers by his lack of interest in throwing out bad government in order to re-establish the nation of Israel as a political kingdom in the land He promised. Never did His teaching point to the need to resist any kind of persecution, declaring our religious liberty to be a human right. In fact, never in His teaching do I even see personal rights of comfort, financial stability, or even political freedom to be held up as something to fight for.

What, then, did Jesus teach?

He, instead, showed His people how to live lives of integrity. He showed them how to live lives of compassion. He challenged those around him to love others. In fact, He specifically declares that our love for one another – not our political party, not our voting record, not our unlistening ears toward all who disagree – will be what allows the world to recognize us as His disciples. He urged his people to care for others, provide for others, live lives of open hands. The goal of Jesus Christ emptying himself and taking on the form of a man walking on this earth was not to establish an earthly political kingdom that His people could control and manipulate to establish lives of comfort and religious freedom. It was not to establish an economic system, ordering others to share equally according to the law of the land.

He came to show us a way of living. In our own homes. In our own communities. Among people lost and broken in their own sin. He came to rescue us from the endless cycle of sin and punishment that had come to be known of God’s people. He came to establish His heavenly kingdom on earth, not with a government or land border, but as a people who truly follow God, living as citizens of a kingdom in Heaven.

Do we need to vote? Yes. Does our government need to hear our voice for what laws we would like to see established? Yes. But if we’re wanting a land that follows biblical principles, we won’t find that in our votes. We will find that in our lives. In the way we treat others. In the way we lead our families.

We are not living in a Christian nation. As residents of this globe, we are living in a land of darkness under the rule of the prince of darkness. We are meant to be lights, leading the way to a better kingdom than any we could hope to establish through our political vote.

To that end, we are not tied to one political candidate, one political agenda, or one political party. We are tied to the Word of God and bound by that Word to act honorably and compassionately, regardless of what happens in the political realm.

At the beginning of this year I was prompted by the Holy Spirit to study the idea of “kingdom” – of what the “kingdom of God” meant, what it looked like, and what we should look like as citizens of such a kingdom. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing what I’ve studied so we can look at this topic in-depth together. I feel that this is the week God was preparing this study for and I’m eager to begin it with you tomorrow, on Election Day. Please go vote, but also remember our hope is not found on a ballot, but in the unchanging goodness of our God and the blood of Jesus at the cross.