Political leaders who confess Christ publicly but fall short

By Kellys Kaunda

Just because a national leader proclaims himself or herself a child of God doesn’t necessarily mean they act like one. There’s usually a distance between words and deeds.

To intelligently verbalize the word of God, one needs a different set of skills from actually developing a living relationship with God. Being intellectually developed is different from spiritual development.

The life of Christ and His interaction with the disciples constitute the best example of both intellectual and spiritual development.

The latter, otherwise known as discipleship, is often a slow and painful process of turning a sinner into a Christ-like character. There must be a conscious commitment by the individual concerned to move in this direction.

Most political leaders who claim Christ publicly but live the exact opposite have no living relationship with Him. And there’s a plausible explanation for this – it is potentially politically beneficial to be identified with the Christian church. It is a huge voting bloc!

But there’s another side to leaders that claim Christ publicly. They may be sincere in their claims. However, God’s archenemy views such leaders as high value targets.

If he can blindside them spiritually and get them to do some sheddy stuff, then expose them, he can make a mockery of God. He can present them before God to buttress his long-held argument that it is impossible to keep His moral law.

Closely related to this explanation is that those closest to God often hurt Him the most. Down the ages, this truth has been replayed countless times.

But why does it happen this way? Well, your proximity to God doesn’t deprive you of your freedom of choice. Even if God kept you in His bossom, He still respects your freedom to disobey him. God wants you to obey Him as a function of your personal choice.

There’s one easier response when a national leader who claims to be a child of God is failing the expected standard of faith – denounce him as a hypocrite. He shouldn’t even be making such a claim because he is embarrassing the name of God.

However, there’s a bright side to national leaders publicly confessing their faith. When they fall, they ignite a discussion around Christian standards!

Public attention is drawn to Christ. Somebody somewhere will seek to know who Christ is. In other words, God uses the short-comings of a national leader to introduce Himself to others or renew the faith of somebody.

In any case, it takes courage to confess Christ in public. It means you are asking the nation to hold you to a higher standard.

Against this backdrop, the best response you can have when a leader has failed in his Christian walk is to pray for them.