I Walk with The King

To Heavenly Land; the Kingdom of Right–the Pathway of Light…

Author Archives: Jason Wesbrooks


by Leave a comment

Rights vs. Righteousness – Politics and Religion: Part 2

We have rights. In the U.S.A our rights are more sacred than baseball and apple pie. Our constitution contains a bill of rights. The very core of what the founding fathers believed was based on the rights of the citizenry. I don’t know about you but I’m thankful and proud to be an American and to be able to take part in the rights the constitution guarantees me.

However, I often have to remind myself of my true citizenship. I sometimes forget that though I have rights as an American citizen, my duty as a citizen of God’s Kingdom may not always align with those rights.

“ Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Eph. 2:19

As an example, let’s consider the Apostle Paul and his missionary partner Silas as they preached in the city of Philippi in Acts 16. They encounter a woman there who was possessed by a “spirit of divination.” Some local men were making a lot money by her fortune telling, and after Paul (by the power of Christ) cast the spirit out these men arranged for the arrest of Paul and Silas.

They were beaten and thrown in to prison, and what follows is a beautiful story of the conversion of the jailor and his family. The next morning the magistrates sent word to release them secretly and Paul had a few choice words to say about the matter.

“ But Paul said to them, ‘They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.’” Acts 16:37

Paul exercised his rights as a Roman citizen, but notice when he did it. He could have done this the day before and saved himself and Silas a beating. But for whatever reason he allowed their arrest and as a result a man and his family were led to Christ.

I don’t pretend to know the reasons Paul did what he did, but I do know that in some cases our rights as U.S. citizens may need to take a back-seat in favor of doing God’s will. It’s the difference between exercising our rights and being righteous.


by Leave a comment

Politics and Religion: Part 1

We live in a culture that is both politically and religiously charged.  As Christians, how are we to conduct our lives in the midst of so much controversy and strife?  What is the separation between our duties to the kingdom of God and duty to our Government? In Matthew 22:17-21, the Pharisees sent their servants to ask Jesus this very question, in an attempt to trap Him by His own words.

“17Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

The wise answer of our Lord served the dual purposes of both answering their question, and exposing their hypocrisy.

18But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? 19“Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. 20And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” 21They said to Him, “Caesar’s.” And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

I think the main problem is that we try to compartmentalize our lives; our Christian life, our work life, our family life, our political life. But Jesus makes it much simpler for us. Instead, there should be only our lives as Christians. Our service to God and to our government need not, and indeed should not, be mutually exclusive. The two go hand in hand together.

Over the course of my next several blog posts I will explore in greater detail what the Bible has to say about this subject, and how we can incorporate the advice of Jesus into our lives.


by 2 Comments

Playing With Fire

I’ve been studying in the book of Leviticus lately, and spent some time thinking about the story of Nadab and Abihu. If you don’t know this story, they were two sons of Aaron, who was the first High Priest under the Law of Moses. In Leviticus chapter 10, shortly after being consecrated as priests, Nadab and Abihu offer a sacrifice to God using fire that He had not authorized. Because of this, the bible tells us that, “…fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.” -Leviticus 10:2

We live in a culture that increasingly pressures us to become tolerant of sinful behavior. Maybe we even become desensitized to the point that we begin to give in to this pressure. It has reached the point in this nation that standing in the truth of God’s word regarding sinful behavior has become tantamount to burning a cross in someone’s front yard.

We serve a loving and compassionate God, but He is the same God that destroyed Nadab and Abihu thousands of years ago. After this incident, God’s message to Aaron was this:

“By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified.” -Leviticus 10:3

God’s message to us is clear. We can either do it the easy way, or the hard way. But He WILL be regarded as holy, and He WILL be glorified. The details matter. The punishment for sin may not be immediate in this day, as it was for Nadab and Abihu, but that is only because:

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” – II Peter 3:9

When we start to ignore the truth of God’s word, and assume that He will overlook sinful behavior, we become like Nadab and Abihu and are just playing with fire.