Can Christians Serve Two Countries?

[RDKirk]

I don't think any nation save Israel has had God's "favor," and certainly not in the Christian era. What I see is that God's people have God's favor, and only in the case of the Israel monarchy have God's people been identified specifically with a national government or with territorial boundaries.

I don't think God sees the earth as a political map. I don't think He looks at the 38th parallel and says, "I like this side, I don't like that side."

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God....-- 1 Peter 2

God sees His people, and His people are His holy nation, not the lines humans draw on a political map. What respect would God--who has created galaxies untold, stars unnumbered--have for imaginary lines drawn by earthly kings whose lives are nothing but vapor?

God does use nations as tools for His purposes, such as how God used Egypt as an incubator to build Israel from Isaac's single family to a nation. God used Babylon as a rod to chasten Israel, and when the period of chastening was over, God used Persia as a tool to end Israel's Babylonian captivity. When He's done using that tool, He's done. That's what you see in scripture.

It may have been that America's purpose was as a tool to provide resources to the worldwide Body of Christ--as the breadbasket for Christians all over the world. If so, I think we Christians in America largely failed that purpose. If so, God may be shifting resources to Christians somewhere else who are more faithful stewards.

 

[Xalith]

When He's done using that tool, He's done. That's what you see in scripture.

That might be what you see in Scripture, but what I see in Scripture is that God blesses whatever nation He happens to be "using" at the time with plenty of blessings, prosperity, etc.

These blessings, prosperity, etc lasts until the nation in question turns away from God, when hubris and pride sets in. Then God seems to just shake His head and remove His hand from that nation, and choose a different one instead, one that has been in need, one that will appreciate His touch more, at least until they, too, fall into hubris and pride, and so on and so forth it goes.

Israel is God's holy chosen nation, yes... but we know from Scripture that Israel isn't the only nation to ever receive blessings from Him. He can bless whoever He wants. You can certainly see evidence over the Post-Christ era of certain nations having blessings over other nations (that was the USA within the last 60 years or so), where one nation will just prosper in a time of plenty, just like some peoples in biblical eras did.

But again, in times of peace and prosperity, people tend to forget about the One who's responsible for said peace and prosperity and that's when the hubris and pride sets in and He looks somewhere else. The USA used to be a rather strongly Christian nation, and we received a lot of blessings from that. We prospered financially, we had a mighty, well respected army, we once had some of the best technology around, our living conditions were second to none, our education system was once up there with the best, I could just go on and on.

Can you say that nowadays? I don't know where you live, Friend, but living in America I can tell you we are no longer anywhere near #1 in many of those areas. Our Healthcare is among the worst of First-World nations, our Education system is pretty well down there too, our roads (not counting main highways) are falling apart, we have the worst internet connections per average citizens in any first-world country, in fact there are second-world countries that have better average internet connections than we do (I say this while I'm on a 3Mbps down/.75Mbps up connection which is very sub-par in today's world, though in all fairness, Comcast did string a line somewhat nearby and they offer 25Mbps which still ain't the best).

I dunno, perhaps I'm just pessimistic or something, but I really can't say that it seems like God is with America these days. Such a sharp decline in ~20 years, it just feels like He turned away from the nation as a whole and said nation is just diving deeper and deeper into sin by the day.

But it isn't just America... you can see the darkness everywhere else in the world too.

EDIT: Dunno about you, but these days, I find myself praying and asking Him, asking Him how much longer is the Enemy going to be able to spoil God's Creation, how much longer is the Enemy going to be allowed to do his wickedness... I know a lot of people scoff at the "End Times" predictions, but I can see where they're coming from and a part of me would just rather we get this over with, rather than let the world fester in evil, though I know there are people who need saved... but with atheism on the rise... it's getting harder and harder to get people to believe.