Jesus Absolutely Deserves to Be in the Marketplace

Lately, I’ve been seeing a rise of people chanting “separation of Church and State” whenever Christians want to vote their values. Roughly translated: “Christianity doesn’t belong here.” The thing is, they don’t just put it in to politics. Many just don’t want to see Christianity anywhere (including the Church House), so they distort and twist history, shame us, and do everything they can to silence us about the faith. And I understand that this is not everyone’s intentions, but the Enemy of our souls wants to use our feelings and emotions to keep us quiet, because he hates EVERYONE made in the image of God (and every human being is made in that image, and Christ’s blood can restore ANYONE to that image!).

What I know from Scripture is this: Jesus preached in public, Peter preached in public, Paul preached in public, and all advocated that all men everywhere should return to their Creator. The Marketplace is EXACTLY where Christianity needs to be, because all humanity, apart from God, is doomed to be apart from Him for eternity because our nature is rebellion (sin is what we call it in the church: anything outside of God’s will is rebellion). So, what do we do? How can we bring Jesus everywhere with boldness and confidence?

First and foremost: know who Jesus is. Politicians, false prophets, atheists, heretics and apostates love to appeal to Jesus. They love to claim that “Jesus would do this” or “Jesus would never do that.” They will appeal to Scripture (mostly out of context) to lure Christians one way or the other. Know who Jesus is. Study the Scriptures. Know that Jesus’ mission was always about dealing with Sin and Death. Look at Jesus’ teachings on love, but also know when He flipped tables and pronounced woes! He is both Love and Lord, King and Judge, and He is the One who determines who Christians should be! Study His life, word for word, and detail for detail, and do everything you can to model your life after Him.

Next: know what God’s word says. Satan’s first deception was to distort God’s word. Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s word, and we have inherited their proclivity to rebel! Satan still says “did God really say,” he still distorts Scripture, and he still seeks to lure God’s image into rebellion any way he can. Study God’s word: all of it, not just what you feel is relevant! Model your life after, and test everything you see, hear, think and feel against it! May every word, every thought and every action be submitted to the will of Christ Jesus and verified through His Word!

Lastly: walk in the Spirit. If we are seeking Christ, and seeking to know the Word and will of God, then the Holy Spirit ought to be the One who interprets and directs our words, actions and thoughts. The Holy Spirit will never contradict the Word of God, He will not play to our feelings, but rather commission us, mold and train us to be like Jesus Christ. He will distribute gifts to us, that we may build up the Body of Christ, and spread the Good News about Jesus. So here it is: know Jesus, test everything you see, feel, think, say and do against the Word of God, and walk by the Spirit. Everything else is of the world! Bring your faith INTO the world without being a part of it, and seek to bring Jesus everywhere, first in to your own life, and then everywhere you go! The marketplace needs Jesus, and Jesus sends us!

John 17

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”