Tina Gasperson

I just am having a really rough time doing this. I have so much I want to say but all that comes out is my frustration. So I’m just going to go back to complaining about myself instead of everything around me.

3. Liberal politicians dupe you into feeling really good about handing
over your hard-earned money so they can spend it for you. And the Republican party fits squarely into the liberal camp as
well, now. “Republican” or “Democrat” - these are just labels that
really don’t mean anything anymore. Conservative ideals say you learn
how to be personally responsible for yourself, and you make your own determination about who needs your help and for how long. Conservatives believe
in helping others because being generous is just the right thing to do,
but they also believe that helping people doesn’t always mean throwing
money and material goods at them. Conservatives believe that the best
way to help others is one on one. Liberalism says, cede control to the
State and we’ll make your decisions for you, whether it’s about who to
give to, or what you need from us. We’ll take care of you.  Yeah,
they’ll take care of me alright. The constituents of liberals are often
either the recipients of this government munificence, or they’re the
ones who would rather not be face to face with anyone needing love and
care. Conservatives consistently give more money to charity and a
larger percentage of their income than liberals, who would rather just
make everyone else do it via taxation (which is a mirage anyway - how
much of our tax money actually goes to helping people and how much goes
to overhead?). If I hand $5 to the disabled vet asking for money, he
gets $5. If I give $5 to the government to “give” to the disabled vet, he gets $.50. (This is only an
estimate - it could be much worse than that.)

2. I’m so past the whole political party thing and have been for a while, but a friend of mine says that Republicans want to take our money to hurt people, and Democrats want to take our money to help people. And that’s just bizarre thinking. I’m not for Republicans or Democrats, because it’s too easy to stick a party label on yourself, and being part of a political party requires no adherence to any ideals or principles. Republicans unfortunately have become associated with conservatism, but they are NOT that. Democrats have somehow co-opted the label of compassion, but they are NOT that.

I wrote this big long rant yesterday and then ended up marking it private. I get kind of blunt when I’m feeling passionate about something and while it’s totally the truth, seems sometimes there are better ways to word things. So I decided to break up that post in to snippets and re-word somethings. Here’s the first snippet.

1. One thing I want to say right now is that eliminating or reducing tax deductions for charitable giving is pretty much counter to the idea of taking care of the poor, hello? ‘Splain that one to me, Lucy.  The government doesn’t really want us to be compassionate and charitable, it just wants us to feel good about giving the government our money.

Politics was never meant to be a lifelong career path. Serving our country in this way was meant to be a sacrifice, not a lucrative power shot. It was meant to be a temporary time of leaving behind your family and your job to serve your constituents and truly represent their interests in Congress and the Senate.

Today I see a ruling class of politicians who believe they know better than their constituents and are there to rule over them and hijack their country for their own ends: political power, fame, and financial gain. My country has been hijacked, not by a party, but by a system of men. I believe God is showing us exactly what happens when God is not our King - all over the world, all throughout time, the systems of men have failed and are failing, and the United States of America is no exception. That we are experimenting with socialism is both amazing in its stupidity, and comforting in its predictability. When left to his own devices, man often begins with the best of intentions, turns to selfish gain and exploitation, and finally comes to the end of his systems and himself. And all that is left is God.

Our founding fathers knew, I believe, that they could not ever stop the eventual rise of greed and the complications and usurpations of liberty that come with it. The only solution short of Heaven is to tear it down every so often and start over. I think we’re overdue for that. I don’t blame any one person, and once again this is not about party, it’s about men. The desire for power, fame, and money, and the self-interest of immoral and amoral men lead to the situation that started happening before the ink even dried on the Declaration of Independence.

I think they knew. God knows. A world that is not led by God’s system (and by that I do not mean the system of men that we currently have misnamed the church), is doomed to failure. All we can do is try to fight for it, burn out the undergrowth and try to start over again, or capitulate and become like the world. Guess what “the church” has done. Guess what people who proclaim to have faith in God are doing. They’ve been sucked into the system just like everyone else and they’re playing along.

More about that later.

What role comes to mind?

Wants to serve and give of him/herself. Main objective is the well-being of others, not financial gain, fame, power, or control. Not meant to be a permanent “office” as much as an answer to a call, to serve as needed where needed. Definitely not intended to be a career path. Unfortunately, has turned into a career path, for financial gain, fame, and power. Longevity in the “office” has become the norm, either that or a steady “upward” path for greater gain, rewards, power, and fame.

What career is this?

What is this whole idea of governing? That men must be subdued and governed is a given, but by whom or what are they to be led? Before Jesus came, Father wanted to be the king of his people, but he was rejected. Give us a king like others have, they said. A king who will go out and fight for us against the other lands. God had given them judges to help settle disputes, but they wanted to be ruled over by a man. Simply having the God of all creation as their king wasn’t enough.

Father has a way of allowing us to see for ourselves the futility of things. It didn’t work out too well with those kings that God allowed them to have. If only they would have chosen to allow God to be their king. If only they would have been governed by Spirit instead of only by what they could touch and see. If only they didn’t have to have someone to go fight their battles for them. If only they’d have trusted.

And here we are again today. You see, Jesus gave us true freedom from earthly kings and being governed by men… but we’re not comfortable with that. We feel more secure with a man to rule over us, to make those difficult decisions for us. We’re willing to give up the freedom that comes with Jesus in order to feel a bit more secure - to feel like we’re safe because someone is responsible for us and will take the blame if something goes wrong. Someone to point the finger at, or someone to worship when everything is going great. Or maybe it’s that we feel safer when “everyone else is doing it.” If we all follow Jesus in exactly the same way because that’s how we were told it was to be done, then can all those people be wrong? Or, how could we possibly know what is Jesus’ voice and what is simply our own flesh or worse yet, Satan’s, unless an appointee tells us. (My question to that is always, if you can’t trust Spirit in you, how can you trust Him in someone else??)

Being governed by Spirit is kind of scary sometimes because you can’t point your finger at someone and say, there it is, that’s it, that’s the path I am to follow.

To those who say, well, if following the Spirit as we see fit was enough, wouldn’t we all hear the same thing?… to them I say, Spirit is everywhere and so if I follow him from where I’m at, my path will look different from yours, even though you’re following too. Someone else’s path is really not my business, is it? I may not agree with it, and I may be called to share what I have learned with someone else, but ruling over each other is not what Jesus came to give us. He came to set us free. If we’re doing everything the same way as the Jews did, just in a modern way, how is that different? What exactly did Jesus die for? Only so we wouldn’t have to keep killing those poor lambs and bulls to cleanse ourselves? If you look at the state of things today you might think so. Nothing else has changed.

But I believe that Jesus did so much more than save the lives of countless sacrificial lambs. He came to set us free to be governed by Spirit, not by men.

Well, there’s more to say than that, but that’s enough for right now.

I need to get something off my chest.