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Did You Vote in Your Last Local Election?
by Randy Todd on 08/29/2011 — 0 Comments
How many votes would you need to be elected as mayor of Fort Worth, TX? It calls itself Cow Town USA, but it's anything but just a cow town.
How many votes would you need to be elected as mayor of Fort Worth, Texas, in the 21st century? It calls itself Cow Town USA, but it is anything but just a cow town. It is home to Bass Hall, one of the finest performance halls in the world. It is the 5th largest city in Texas and the 17th largest city in the U.S. with a population of 741,206 (per the 2010 Census). That's a lot of people!
So how many votes do you suppose it would take to be elected in a campaign that was described by the Star Telegram Newspaper as a "hotly contested mayoral race" that ended up with a run-off election? To help you out, keep in mind that of the 3/4 of a million people who call Fort Worth home, only a little over 325,000 are registered voters. After all, kids can't vote.
In the latest mayoral election in Fort Worth, Betsy Price was elected with only 19,963 votes! That is less than 2.7% of the total population! What is more, since you only need a majority of the votes to win, she could have actually won with only 16,000 votes!
I can imagine all of the excuses we might hear. Ranging from, "It's too much of a hassle," "I was really busy," "I didn't have time," "I forgot," "It's not that important," "It doesn't make any difference," to "I didn't know there was an election." My suspicion is that this is epidemic all across America. We are indifferent. We are uninvolved. We devote our lives to enjoying the benefits of democracy yet we are content to leave all of the details of a democratic society to someone else—of course, we always reserve the right to criticize and complain when things aren't as we believe they should be.
What is the old saying? Freedom isn't free! Many lives have been sacrificed, and countless lives have been turned upside down for the sake of the freedoms and privileges we enjoy in America. Dare we simply take it all for granted?
Tragically, the culture of uninvolvement has spread into the life of most local churches. Far too many Christians are content to accept the benefits of God's kingdom and membership of a local church, while leaving all of the details of the church's life to someone else.
In Galatians 5:1 the Apostle Paul makes a very bold assertion about those who belong to Christ: "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." In God's kingdom our freedom from sin, our freedom to serve the living God, isn't free either. Christ Jesus our Lord laid down his life and paid the price in full for our eternal redemption. He paid the price in full for us to be forever set free from the tyranny of the bondage of sin and moral decay so that we might live triumphantly and victoriously, that we might live righteous, godly, noble lives of sacrifice and valor in the name of Jesus, with absolutely no fear of defeat, death or dishonor. The Son has made us free indeed.
When we come into God's kingdom, when we come to church, only for a few primary benefits and privileges, when we disregard our high calling in Christ to such things as duty, valor, and sacrifice, we cheapen Christ's sacrifice and we ignore the obligation we have to follow Jesus. We dishonor Christ whenever we fail to live for the one who died for us and was raised again. In the process, without even realizing it, we actually miss out on the countless blessings that are found in Christ when we listen to his voice and do the very things that he did for the sake of others. As he said on the night of his betrayal, "Now that you know these things, you will be blessed when you do them."