Savior Politics: Be Wary of the Great “I Will”…

This election season, I watch the television in alarm… and it isn’t at the candidates.

It’s at the followers.

I continue to be baffled at the way the masses have latched onto one candidate and are blinded by promises that can never be fully kept.  They follow like sheep headed to the slaughter.  And why would anyone in their right mind flock to the slaughter? 

They rapidly lap up the promises of wealth, security and growth applauding at every edict of “I will do this” and “I will do that”.  It is one thing to promise to veto a bill, it is another to say “I will make America rich again… You are going to be so rich.”  Who can do that?!  Or to follow a candidate who continually makes promises that, by their track record, are clearly only promising what needs to be said to get the vote.  Confounding!

It is like followers have exchanged the truth for a delusion.  

Voters have fallen for a mirage.

Incidentally, many of these voters are also believers… believers who are warned about following false teachers and gods of their time.  Scripture also warns that many will be deceived and that even believers will fall away.

So what are the false gods that are being so easily followed, it is like they worshiped?  The promises of wealth.  The promises of power.  The promises of security.  

It almost feels like the masses are searching for a political savior of sorts.  It is to no surprise really, because that is how our current president won his two terms.

Remember all of the marketing, the portraits, the “Audacity of Hope” type books that were slewn at the public not to long ago?  Remember the illustrations with the glint in his eye and that hopeful stare?  Remember how many, many, salivated at his every word as though he would be the one to overturn their long term heartache?

I fear that just as then, it is occurring again now.  People are looking to these candidates as a vessel of saving… but there is only one Savior.  

We live in an age where people vote for the candidate who will rescue them… who will give them entitlements, advantages they did not work a minute to receive.  We live in an age where people vote for the candidate that promises to rescue them from being on the loosing end, offering the ability to win.

But that would also require the rest of the world participating and cooperating in America winning again.  Or, that would require America becoming a bully with unrelenting demands and punches.  Neither one is America.  

What’s sadder is that America’s identity is really in turmoil.  The past eight years have demolished traditional American principles, values and beliefs that have been stood on since its inception.  And I’m not just talking about all the things our recent leaders have done.  I’m talking about what we have done.

Simply put… the heart of America (as a whole) has turned its back on God.

This is clearly represented in the symbolic removal of many monuments, like the Ten Commandments.   What does that say about America’s value of God’s Holy instruction for our lives?

How about in the funding of institutions that allow the death of innocent babies or the laws made in the name of the constitution but really go against it?  Truly, there are countless other atrocities that I could point to, but our media is quick and persistent to stay on the constant battles. 

The bottom line issue for me is that America has lost its identity because Americans have lost their identity in God.  

(Granted, I'm speaking as a collective whole here. While there are many believers who seek God in their lives and aim to find their identity in Him, it is still every man who has fallen short of His glory (Rom. 3:23) and wrestle with sin.)

And it is our continual sinfulness that effects everything... even our government.  

As much as we rally and cry out that our government system is corrupt, is not vastly started by the corruption of our own hearts?  The hearts that yearn for self centered promotion, prestige and power?  The hearts that seek to get what they want, or what a powerful someone else wants in exchange for something else? Those issues don’t start in the Senate or the House.  They start in the very soul of man, affecting us every minute of every day.   

Let’s take a quick snapshot of the everyday world in which we live.

—We are perfectly fine being Biblically illiterate but crave knowing how many likes our recent status has on FB. 

—We can’t give someone who needs some grace to get ahead of us in the grocery store line because we were there first, have our own agendas, etc. 

—We are completely rude and disregard common courtesies. 

—Scroll to any comments section and see venomously hateful statements to those who oppose our sides.  It’s like an open gladiator ring full of blood and death.  Why is this behavior allowable?  Can’t we disagree respectfully?

—Many people are more gratified by their work than their own children.  The masses applaud the parents who spend 90% of their time away from their families when their incomes turn a high profit saying they have it all.  This is the modern role model and it is lusted after. 

I could go on, but you get the point.  American values and priorities are out wack leading to America becoming a highly dysfunctional nation.  Then add that to poverty, capitalistic oppression for small business owners, high output with little return and a growing resistance of how it should be and is not... and you get.... modern day America.  (How is it again that we consider ourselves so advanced?)

Then, add an election year.  All of these issues together gives any candidate the perfect fodder to take advantage of the situation and generate a mirage as themselves as the political savior. 

What a harvest for a candidate who promises they will make us rich…. how you might ask?  Well, honestly, it probably doesn’t matter.  Just the salivation for wealth is enough to hook a voter.

A candidate promises they can make our nation secure.  How?  To make another country pay for a wall?  Has this country agreed to it?  Otherwise, the way to enforce this is costly.  But whatever.  The voter is already hooked at the idea for our ability to lord power. 

A candidate promises they will make America great again…. that Americans will win again with the example of the fact that they are a billionaire and lives in a peach and gold marble skyscraper.  Definitely not a hard sell to the voter who, for the most part, is not rich, does not live in peach and gold marble and by the way, who, for the most part, also happens to desire to be rich, powerful and live with prominence.   Selling celebrity is relatively easy.  

And in the world of social media, everyone wants a selfie of themselves as a celebrity.

It just seems like the main line of capitalism isn’t America’s growing wallets but instead a reverse capitalism… what is being taken from the American's wallet.  

It is the voter that is being capitalized on.  Not the other way around.

The mirage is this:  The political savior is feeding your ego to feed their own.  They offer a delusion to get from you what they want.  It definitely happened in 2008, 2012 and by the way things look, it is happening again in 2016.  By business standards this is called “strip mining”; where a company gets your land and strips it of all its natural valuables to build a man-made money maker.  

The massive political movement is no different.  Certain candidates get your vote, then do what they want for their own gain, regardless of you.  But, because it is you who fell for their mirage, due to the false gods you sought after, you gave them your vote and you allowed it to happen!  

So, I beg you fellow Americans.  Wake up!  Do your own research.  Don’t buy into who will give you what.  Find out what these candidates stand upon, how they have lived their lives, what their record shows, how they conduct themselves and what they consistently believe upon.

Don’t fall for the mirage and vote for false promises.  Don’t vote for a political savior.  Recognize you already have a Savior who has given you hope, who has provided for your every need and who has already secured your eternal future.  Realize no man -- or woman-- no matter how powerful, wealthy, or prominant can give you anything more fulfilling.  Don't fall for their polished, strategically marketed words.  Vote upon their actions.

Vote for a candidate who can operate as President.  Vote for the person who doesn’t pose as a savior but points us to the one true Savior of the world.

Most importantly, follow the Savior in your own lives.  This nation became the greatest and won not by its characteristics, but from where the characteristics were founded... in Christ.  

If every American had this same foundation that America was founded in, then our nation's identity would resurrect and united, we would be able to stand again.  

©Candice Irion, 2016.  All Rights Reserved.