Prayer Breakfast President

At a recent Easter prayer breakfast, President Obama, leaving his teleprompter for a moment, said that he, “gets concerned about Christians who are less than loving in their expressions.”  Perhaps it is those rampaging Presbyterians, those marauding Methodists, or some bomb-building Baptists whose lack of love has garnered the theologian-in-chief’s condemnation.   No Mr. President, Christ’s willing sacrifice on the cross means His followers don’t have to fly an airplane into a skyscraper, strap a bomb to their body, or behead an “unbeliever” to be with God for all of eternity.   

It cannot be said too loudly or too often:  Jesus Christ is the hope of nations and the antidote to all that ails us.  He is the answer, not the problem.  When Thomas (the doubter) asked Jesus how they could know the right way to go, Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.   If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”  Jesus plainly declares He is the only way man can know God. 

Jesus is also the long awaited Messiah the followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob longed for.  After John the Baptist was thrown in prison he wanted to be reassured Jesus was the Messiah.   Jesus told His followers, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.  Blessed is anyone who does not stumble on account of me.”  Thereby fulfilling what Isaiah said about the coming Messiah.

In talking to the woman at the well, Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.”  Most Bible believing Christians have a great love for the Jewish people and their state.  Paul explains a symbiotic relationship between the believing Gentile and Israel that can benefit both, “…salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious.  But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring!”
 
Most Gentiles that know the Jewish carpenter as Savior realize they have been grafted into His faith.  Although believers may be Gentiles by birth, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and David become their spiritual patriarchs and heroes as much as they are to the tribes of Israel.  Christians are enriched by the Judean ethic, and Israel is blessed by the Christians who recognize their spiritual heritage.    

President Obama’s demonstrated disdain for Israel, and his embracing of the Iranians, places America in a precarious position and puts Israel in peril.  Not only has he snubbed the only unwavering ally we have in the Middle East, but he also alienates our nation from God.  President Obama would be wise to heed Patrick Henry and President Netanyahu, both of whom are true leaders.  Patrick “Give me liberty or give me death” Henry said this about our nation, "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of

worship here."  

Paul told the Romans, ^“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.”  Jesus explained this gospel (good news) one night to a Jewish teacher named Nicodemus.  Jesus told him, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”  

The next verse is the most famous of all – John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  Now that is a “loving expression” that the Islamic State, our fifty states, and the world need to hear. 

My prayer for the President: rather than bashing Christians, be one.