Posted December 8, 2016 under Blog

Is God for Ateneo or La Salle?

We interrupt Marie's Christmas series for an all-important post on the Ateneo- La Salle Championships.

Now that I have your attention, let me explain how I got to the title of this post. A few days ago I received a message on Facebook Messenger from a member of our church who asked me "...what is our church's stand on current political issues?"

My response was to first of all thank her for not just sitting idly by and wait for the popular "stand", or worse, not even care about the obvious concerns of the nation.?I am glad that she had the wisdom to ask for advice before using her universal power of socialized media to rant or try to sound like a political expert of sorts... both of which are so common these days.

Honor God and Make Disciples
I explained to her that the church's "stand" has not changed, to "Honor God and Make Disciples." The question thus for her is how does that translate to the situation of the nation.

Throughout the Bible and in history God has positioned His people on both sides of the pro and anti camps. Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar's time was in power and in position when the incident involving his friends' (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) protested against the king's edict happened. And yet we find that he was silent about the issue involving them.

The Bible is replete with examples of God's people who at one moment were pro, then the next minute against, the very same people they were for. Moses saved the Jews, and was obviously pro-Semitic, but he still constantly rebuked and judged them when they went against God's stand.

Empowered by the Holy Spirit

The key to understanding God's stand whether it's in a basketball game or a political endeavor is to realize that what He wants to do through you may not necessarily be what He wants to do through another person. For instance, there were Christians who supported Clinton, voted Trump, and others who abstained, the issue for each one is whether they were led by the Holy Spirit or not.

Take the case of Private Desmond Doss. He was a private who participated in World War II as a medic without firing a single shot because who claimed to have obeyed God. Certainly there were other believers in the same war whom God instructed to fight and kill and obeyed Him as well.

To be a disciple who is empowered by the Holy Spirit is to know what it is that God would have you do as well as to know why He wants you to do it. The Lord will never let us do something that is not according to His Word, and what He would have us do may not necessarily the same thing that He would have His other children do.

To be led by God's Spirit does not only mean we will know what to do but to have the ability to celebrate what God wants to do in the lives of others.

Jesus and John the Baptist

This is the story of Jesus and John the Baptist. John who was anti-establishment ended up in prison for doing what was God's will for his life. Jesus, on the other hand, was becoming popular as He preached and healed, fulfilling the Father's will.

In prison, John sent his disciples to ask Jesus: "John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?" Luke 7:20

The question was odd considering John baptized Jesus, and was one of the few who knew Jesus' true identity. Jesus responded by saying, "Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them." Luke 7:22

Jesus' way of saying to John, God wanted you to do what He wanted you to do and I am doing what the Father wants me to do. His parting words to Johns disciples was; "...blessed is the one who is not offended by me." Luke 7:23

Jesus was, in other words asking,?can you celebrate what God has asked someone to do that may not be what He has asked you to do?

Is God for Ateneo or La Salle?

My final point to the question the church member asked was, certainly there were Ateneans and La Sallites who prayed earnestly that their team would win. And in God's sovereignty one team won, and the other lost.

So who is God for? The correct answer is He is for His children in both camps. What's more important is not which team God was rooting for, but that His children from either side honor Him, and hopefully become witnesses of His love and grace whether they had won or lost.

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