A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD BOY in my church got up at 5:45 a.m. last Wednesday.
He asked his mom who won the election.
When she told him, he burst into tears.
He’s terrified that two of his friends, who are Hispanic, will get deported.
He asked why the president-elect would do such a thing, and then he declared something that at least half the nation seems to have concluded: “He isn’t a nice person.”
I don’t know if the parents are here illegally. I would assume so. I know of some who have been here for decades. With a work ethic that we could use more of.
“If they’re here illegally,” an accountant once told me, “they should be deported. They broke the law.”
I said, “You can write a law making it illegal for someone to run out of a burning building onto your property. That doesn’t make it right.”
Many families have come here illegally out of desperation, for fear of their lives, often. They just want to survive.
I understand the argument that would send these people back to where they came from.
Absolutely, I would expect to hear that argument from secular-minded folks unfamiliar with the Bible or with the teachings of Jesus.
But what I don’t understand yet, is why I hear it coming from so many people who call themselves Christians.
We’ve talked about this in my Bible study class, which includes people who say they want illegal immigrants deported. We tried to list the Christian principles behind both arguments.
There were none for the deportation argument.
We could come up with plenty of secular, “we gotta look out for us first” arguments.
But there’s nothing of Jesus in that, as far as I can tell.
For Christians on the fence about this topic, I’ll post a few Bible verses that are pretty important guidelines.
But I’ve noticed that to a great extent, Christianity doesn’t seem to make a difference in the way people talk, vote, or live.
It’s as though many folks figure if they believe in Jesus, they can call themselves Christians.
Others argue that it’s probably a good idea to act like one, too.
From the Bible of Jesus
- “You must not mistreat or oppress foreigners in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).
- “Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land” (Leviticus 19:33).
- “He [God] ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing. So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19).
From the mouth of Jesus
- “When someone asks you to give them something, give it to them” (Luke 6:30).
- “Be compassionate, like your Father is” (Luke 6:36).
- “I was hungry, but you did not give me anything to eat, and I was thirsty, but you did not give me anything to drink. I was a stranger, but you did not welcome me…Whenever you failed to help any of my people, no matter how unimportant they seemed, you failed to do it for me. Then Jesus said, ‘Those people will be punished forever’” (Matthew 25:42-46).
Many of the people who feel like this are simply living in fear. Many outlets, such as the media, have struck enormous fear in the hearts of Americans. They tell us we are under attack from terrorists from these foreign lands, even though logic would dictate most of the terror acts we’ve seen recently were from the hands of fellow Americans. Fear drives people to say and do horrible things, even the ones who claim to do it in the name of God. In many ways, the people who hold this belief are in the same frame of mind as the foreign terrorists they claim to fight against. I agree, there is nothing of Jesus in their words and deeds.
This is not the America I once knew. My heart goes out not only to this nation. My heart extends to all other nations that are at war. Families that are torn and for the most part people that are left to die. So many religions that have lost their faith. Satan is out and about doing his work and claiming lives. Revelation 16:16 And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon. Are these signs of what’s to come, or the blind folds are taking over so one cannot see, or hearts that have lost the love of human kind.