Chapter 8
RIGHTEOUS AND COMPETENT LEADERS – WHERE ARE THEY?
The leaders, who consider their own family as more important than the people’s families and so fall short of the standard of the Divine Law “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, are not suited to run for public office; they are fit to have their own businesses or private employment.
You cannot serve the people if you love your family more than your people’s families. You must come to a matured state where all families (yours and theirs) have become your One Big Family where you do not want any one to suffer or get neglected!
That is the kind of good leaders we need!
We need “God-centered” men to lead our town and this nation. “God-centered” means that man is so grateful to God for His love and blessings so that he has dedicated himself to focus on doing God’s bidding to serve, and not to be served, to rule with love and not by force, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to treat the sick, to help the prisoners. He carefully takes note God’s statement: “What you would do to any of these My poor brethren, you have done that to Me.” And so, he serves for His happiness. He serves to make Him happy. He serves to please Him. He serves to pay his debt to Him. He serves because he loves Him. And he also serves them because he loves them. That is the content of the heart of a true Christian leader: love for God, love for neighbor and love for self – in perfect balance and right measure: 600fold love for God, 60fold love for neighbor and 6fold love for Self. To give Self 600 and God only 6 is to have the evil 666 of the Revelation which is now ruling over this world!
Change of heart, change of love, change of motivation. Change of mind, change of motive. Change of the overall attitude and character.
Jesus has been taking charge of this CHANGE OF THE HEART AND MIND. This has been His task ever since to create His nation Israel. God’s spiritual nation Israel is to be composed of those whom Christ called out from all walks of life from every nation to form a new nation.
“The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah… This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time…I WILL PUT MY LAW IN THEIR MINDS, AND WRITE IT ON THEIR HEARTS. THEN I WILL BE THEIR GOD AND THEY WILL BE MY PEOPLE.”[1]
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone [callousness] and give you a heart of flesh [gentleness, compassionate]. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to [willingly and happily] follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.”[2]
Then…
“You will live in the land I gave to your forefathers. You will be My people and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field…”[3]
So, these Christ-trained men already around, shall we continue to deny their God-given right to be our leaders by continuing to accept the bribe (votemoney) of by-God-disapproved self-appointed votebuyers-candidates?
God likes the righteous men He has molded by the crucible of poverty and daily trials. They are the ones who will not lead us away from God. They are the ones who will lead us to Him. These men shall help in our salvation. They will not tell us that vices are harmless. They will tell us to our face that vices will steal our salvation. They will tell us the truth that vices remove us from the road of salvation and divert us to the path of destruction.
Vices are not innocent. Their pleasures are a trap – a deception; for vices are deep-rooted sins; not just mere sins. Vices are well-entrenched sins. Vices are not mere seedling sins; they are full-grown big-trunks of sins. They are the hardest kinds of sins to remove. That is why we need a powerful Savior to overcome our vices. Vices are very difficult to curb; no outside force can conquer them, not the police. Why? Because vices have taken roots inside our hearts and minds and derive from there their daily food or sustenance and so, how can the police or government or any other outside forces destroy vices – since their roots are inside our heart and mind, well beyond the police’s reach? Vices are like well-watered trees on fertile soil; these vices thrive inside undetected and only their branches and leaves [that is, acts of the vicious man] keep on reaching out, expanding, or like octopus whose tentacles keep on reaching out capturing and strangling its victims. Vices are also like a water-spring whose source is the deep ground. How can you stop it from flowing? You may close or cover its mouth; but its underground supply will remain abundant. It will seek another outlet or exit. You had not made an end of vice! Vice is precisely like mountain-size city garbage, thrown into a deep valley, and covered by a thick mass of soil. How dangerous is this landfill as every real landfill in the world is? It is like a simmering bomb underground waiting for the right time to explode! Vices are not passing sins; they are repeated sins, minute by minute in our mind and heart, hour by hour in our words, day by day in our actions, week after week in the form of secret acts and, at times, when ripe, in the form of crimes against humanity – causing more and more damage like a wildfire creeping wider and wider burning more and more! Vices are hardened bad habits – very harmful and destructive habits! All you need to die and leave your family in misery is just one vice, not many! All you need to harm humanity by your bad example to the people and corrupt impressible young minds is just one vice, not many!
One germ will multiply into billions.
Gambling was started by Spaniards – cockpit and cards. Now, some 400 hundred years later, the germs have multiplied. It is billions of Filipinos contracted and sick of it! Billions of Filipinos are now hugging these vices and their innovations, like a long-lost friend or a wife in the thick of the night – only to wake up one morning that we had made love with a monster! What were the two demonic objectives of the Spaniards? First, to dull and deadened every Filipino’s mind so this will close its doors and not let wise and bright ideas to enter. Result: dull and corrupt minds; hence, weak and coward mind. Second, to plant a different kind of love, self-indulgent love, to fill the heart so that there will be no space for love of God, love of fellowmen, and often, the space allotted for wife and children were demolished.
Now elsewhere, the invisible Lord Jesus Christ has been training men of integrity for leadership roles in the country. He has done His part: creation of a new heart and a new mind – new character.
Now, it is all up to us to do His will: look for : “However, it is God’s will that you will always listen and look to the wisest among you in order to willingly receive the decrees of God, both general and personal. But beware of ever according such as a wise one more respect, love and reverence than another not yet wise, but still most willing and dear brother.
“And the respect for the one wise out of God’s grace shall consist in nothing else but love of God, love of the neighbor and the most willing obedience to God’s directives through the humble heart of a wise brother.”[4]
“Abolish all superiority…so that all shall be equal as brothers and sisters, and appoint only the wisest among the common people as future leaders. However, do not ever let them occupy the royal palaces, for they shall live in the simplest and most lowly huts.
When you see that they are capable and suitable as leaders and supervisors, lay your hands on their foreheads and shoulders, thereby bestowing on them the necessary power.”[5]
That is one of the reforms to our election process and laws. Then, we shall have better results and wise men will finally be elected to office. Let us help fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy: Noble men with noble plans shall lead the people.
“See, a king [Jesus Christ at the top and His appointee in each region] will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice.
“Each man will be like a shelter from the wind and a refuge from the storm, like streams of water in the desert and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land.
“Then the eyes of those who see will no longer be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen.
“The mind of the rash will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.
“NO LONGER WILL THE FOOL BE CALLED NOBLE NOR THE SCOUNDREL BE HIGHLY RESPECTED. For the fool speaks folly, his mind is busy with evil: He practices ungodliness and spreads error concerning the Lord; the hungry he leaves empty and from the thirsty he withholds water. The scoundrel’s methods are wicked, he makes up evil schemes to destroy the poor with lies, even when the plea of the needy is just.
“But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands” (Isaiah 32:1-8).
That is the condition that will be in God’s Kingdom. Let us help “Thy Kingdom come” by doing “Thy will be done.” Locate the righteous and elect them to office. They will not lead you astray. But they will lead you to God’s Kingdom, and not just in prosperity.
Then the earth shall be a paradise (Revelation 21:1-5; 22:1-6; Isaiah 65:17-25). And we will reign with God here on earth made like heaven and paradise (Revelation 5:10)!
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