What excites you most as you look ahead to 2017? Is it the prospect of all that will happen once Donald Trump is sworn into office? Will he and the Republican-controlled House and Senate be able to make helpful changes? Will Obamacare be repealed? Will construction begin on that wall that the president-elect promised?
Are we just dreaming to think that Donald Trump will be able to do all he’s promised? Are we foolish to put all our eggs in the billionaire’s basket?
Aren’t you glad that as Christians we have cause to place our dreams, our hopes, our rejoicing in Someone infinitely greater than a mere man! Followers of Jesus Christ don’t have to look to Trump Tower. Rather, we look far beyond. We’re called to follow the pattern of the psalmist who wrote, “I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help come from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 121: 1-2 (ESV)
The question is really “How will God use Donald Trump in 2017?” God has used both wicked and righteous kings in the past to accomplish His will. How will He choose to use our new “king?” Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He will.” Do we truly believe this verse?
What if we use this Christmas season as a rest stop on the road to inauguration day? What if we purposefully stopped to thank God for the mercy He has shown our nation this year, and ask Him to do an incredible work in and through Donald Trump and America’s other leaders? As the old hymn says, “Ponder anew what the Almighty can do.”
There’s much excitement about Donald Trump becoming president, but the believer’s true excitement should come when he or she looks past the incoming president to heaven and earth’s omnipotent King.
Charles Spurgeon helps puts things in perspective in a sermon he preached on a Christmas morning in 1859:
“Hark, yonder! What means the firing of the Tower guns? Why all this ringing of bells in the church steeples, as if all London were mad with joy? There is a prince born; therefore there is this salute, and therefore are the bells ringing.
Ah, Christians, ring the bells of your hearts, tire the salute of your most joyous songs, ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.’ Dance, O my heart, and ring out peals of gladness! Ye drops of blood within my veins dance every one of you! Oh! all my nerves become harp strings, and let gratitude touch you with angelic fingers! And thou, my tongue, shout—shout to is praise who hath said to thee—"Unto thee a child is born, unto thee a Son is given." Wipe that tear away! Come, stop that sighing! Hush yon murmuring. What matters your poverty? "Unto you a child is born." What matters your sickness? ‘Unto you a Son is given.’ What matters your sin? For this child shall take the sin away, and this Son shall wash and make you fit for heaven.
I say, if it be so,
‘Lift up the heart, lift up the voice,
Rejoice aloud! ye saints rejoice!’"
