About this morning....

"if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14

"Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God."
Matthew 5:9

God threw us a curveball this morning, but the takeaway is obvious: The Gospel of Jesus Christ is more powerful than cheap political demagoguery.

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We were on our way to Church in North Austin when we came across the "Love Trumps Hate" rally at City Hall.  It was about what you would expect from such an event.  A bunch of hardcore leftest were whipping a crowd of frightened people into a frenzy over misdeeds which may or may not occur during the Trump presidency.

The event was emceed by some pregnant chick whose husband is an illegal alien.  While it's easy to empathize with her plight, that empathy only goes so far.  Rather than calling for immigration laws more in line with economic reality, her remarks embodied the sense of entitlement so frequently found at pro-illegal immigration events.

As longer term readers know, this website isn't particularly hard line on the subject of immigration.  Current U.S. immigration laws were written by labor unions in the 1960's and are thus out of step with anything remotely resembling economic reality.  Nevertheless, admitting you broke the law and apologizing for doing so (even if the law in question is unenforceable) would go a long way towards healing the situation instead of inflaming it for political purposes.

When it comes to inflaming the situation for political purposes, it was impossible to top Mayor Adler and Greg Casar.  Both spoke and pledged various degrees of...blah, blah, blah..."resistance" to Trump in the coming years.  We weren't able to capture all of their remarks, but you can view a representative sample below:

Adler:



Casar:



Unfortunately, Donald Trump and Greg Casar have a lot more in common than either would admit. They're both demagogues who inflame racial tensions for political power.  They just play to different audiences.

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And if that were the end of it, that would have meant an interesting political morning....

....but it wasn't.

We've been curious about the LifeAustin downtown services for several months.  They meet at the ACL theater every Sunday and we frequently see them while we're in transit to our home Church in North Austin.  Today's event at City Hall finished just in time to attend their worship service one block north.

It was a back-to-basics Gospel message about healing.  While the message dealt specifically with guilt and shame, it was just as applicable to the tensions that have become inflamed through national politics.  But in order to take advantage of God's healing, we first need repentance.

Repentance...ain't that the truth.

All of us bear responsibility for the mess in which we currently find ourselves.  That mess predated the recently concluded presidential election and it's aftermath.  Those events just made it unignorably public.

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Bottom Line: We have no idea what the next few years will bring, but we will place our trust in the healing power of Gospel over cheap political demagoguery from either the left or what passes for the "right" these days.