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Does God Have Your Vote?

When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” Joshua 5:13 ESV

We all want God on our side. In fact, we often claim He is without ever bothering to ask Him. We assume we have the power of His name behind us, fighting for what we believe.

And Christians fight against Christians, fully believing that God stands with them. Only God never battles against Himself.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4

God never gives mixed messages. He never disagrees with Himself. We fight one another from our flesh.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? James 4:1

It makes us feel better—especially with our passions roused in an election year— to say that our convictions come from God. Unfortunately, they often don’t. And sometimes we stand opposed to God without even realizing it

Even the Apostle Paul opposed God’s work because he made assumptions about what God would want and how He’d move. He wrote of his mistake in Galatians 1:13.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

Paul didn’t just raise his voice against God’s church. He raised weapons. His “zeal for God” imprisoned, wounded and killed those who loved Jesus, God’s beloved Son. He’d convinced himself he fought to uphold God’s desires when really, he fought to uphold his own.

The real question, beloved, isn’t whether God stands on our side. It’s whether we truly stand on His.

I’ll say this as delicately as I can. What you want to see out of this election really doesn’t matter. Your opinion on economic policy doesn’t make any difference. And your perception of each candidate holds no weight in God’s economy.

What matters is whose policies align most closely with God’s Word.

We stand at a tipping point, beloved. This nation must decide if we remain true to the One whose blessing and favor exalted it to the power it became. God’s hand inexplicably prospered a group of farming colonies into a national superpower because they chose to unite and establish themselves as One Nation Under God.

Yet we have systematically written into law statutes that deny the very God responsible for our great victories. And we stand amazed as our prosperity declines amid increasing instability.

It doesn’t matter if the lost among our nation refuse to recognize God, dear one. What matters to God is when His own do.

As this presidential election hastens toward us, I understand the frustration over the candidates. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t particularly like either personality. Both fall far short of the high moral ethics I’d like to see in a candidate.

But God doesn’t ask us to vote for a candidate, beloved. Party affiliation means nothing. As Christians we must vote for policy that most closely agrees with God’s Word and honors His position.

A great debate rages among the people of this land over the rights of an unborn child. I would like to ask you for a moment to shift your gaze from personal feelings and public opinion and look upon the question from heaven’s view.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.” Jeremiah 1:5

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14a

The question, beloved, is this. Do you believe God’s Word is true?

If not, it really doesn’t matter how you vote. But if you do, a new question surfaces.

If every life is, in fact, created by God and ordained for purpose, do we have a right to override what God has decreed? Does man—created by God from the dust of the earth—have the right to tell God He was wrong this time? Can we really believe that we are entitled to tell God we know better?

Such thinking displays arrogance that sets itself up in God’s place. When we exalt ourselves where God deserves to be, we position ourselves on very dangerous ground.

If you’re a believer, I don’t need to tell you whose nature that resembles.

I understand that my words might upset some people. In fact, scripture promises they will. For we find ourselves in the days described by Isaiah 59:12-15.

For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities: transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning back from following our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words.

 Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice.

We can’t allow the public square to define our truth, beloved. Public opinion no longer recognizes truth. The deceiver has lifted his voice, establishing false wisdom that denies our Lord. And we have believed him.

Forgive us, Father.

Wisdom cries aloud in every street (Proverbs 1:20) begging our return to the Lord our God. He alone holds the right to create life and deny it. He alone established the covenant of marriage and maintains the right to define it.

Everything else hinges on whether we believe that’s true.

You see, economic prosperity, victory in battle, and the safety of our borders all fall under God’s blessing when we stand in agreement with His Word. And He repeatedly promises that when we stand for Him, He stands for us and will make Himself known on our behalf.

Your vote this election will announce your answer to this question, dear one.

Do you believe Him?

A Unified Purpose

Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity! It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes! Psalm 133:1-2

Few things thrill the heart of God like seeing His beloved children come together in agreement over His purpose. After all, unity reflects the very nature of God.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Deuteronomy 6:4

Dear one, God dwells in perfect agreement with Himself. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit never depart from acting as one.

Yet His church often resists such unity. Instead of building one another up and working together to advance His kingdom, we oppose one another. We point the Sword at one another instead of standing together against the real enemy.

My heart burns to embrace the same unity that reflects our One God.

I’m excited to announce a new partnership with Renewing the Heart Ministries to claim Kingdom ground in the Northeast. Here are a few words about my vision. I pray you will catch it too!

I’m excited for the opportunity to partner with Renewing the Heart Ministries, answering God’s call to redefine “women’s ministry” in our region and become women who authentically and biblically minister to women. Ministry was never supposed to be about programs. God calls us to live ministry, impacting the lives of those around us as a natural consequence of our own personal walk with Jesus.

I share Renewing the Heart’s passion to teach believers how to align their lives with the Word of God so they can live transformed and victorious. I know the frustration of living a powerless existence, doing my best to please God while rarely experiencing joy myself. The days of empty works are over. Christ’s return draws near. He calls His body to prepare the way for His coming, to rise in unity and prove the power of the cross through the word of our testimony. It’s time we link arms and together experience the promise of 1 Corinthians 4:20, “For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.”

I am honored and humbled to join Renewing the Heart for their Iron Sharpens Iron conferences as MC and one of their keynote speakers. Uniting all churches to worship together in Spirit and Truth echoes Christ’s cry to His Father in Gethsemane:

“The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:22-23

Unity in the body of Christ releases love to accomplish His work. And together we have the opportunity to come alongside hurting churches through our Woman2Woman events. The Kelley Latta Ministries team will work in partnership with Renewing the Heart to disciple leaders and their women in the Word and equip them to raise up difference makers—authentic followers of Christ who impact their communities.

Together we’ll see Christ revealed in our region. Love remains the answer. The Word of God lived in love carries the power to heal and restore. Our God stands ready to reveal Himself in our midst. What a privilege to be a vessel He uses to release life!

Thank you for your prayer support as we join together in Jesus’ Name. I look forward to updating you as the vision unfolds!

Anticipating the Harvest,

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Wielding the Sword of the Spirit

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 1 Peter 3:8

I recently saw something that unsettled my spirit deeply. Some people I love and respect shared a video disparaging several Bible teachers I have also come to respect.

Henry Blackaby was one of them, labeled a false teacher for his Bible study Experiencing God. That Bible study was the very tool God used to lead me to salvation in His beloved Son.

Grief is the only word that aptly describes my response. I literally wept. What tool of the enemy would draw me into intimate, authentic relationship with Jesus Christ?

I can say authentic with deep conviction, because that relationship unleashed the power of grace in my life. I was changed. God tendered my shackled heart and caused it to love in ways that it couldn’t before. His Spirit within me brought forth beautiful fruit.

And yet some would say that teaching didn’t come from God.

It’s amazing how people who profess the same Lord can view things so differently. Passionately clinging to our own interpretation of scripture, we stand on opposing sides, using the same Bible to hurl accusations at one another in a desperate attempt to prove we’re right.

I don’t believe that’s what God had in mind when He placed the sword of the Spirit in our hands. We’re not meant to turn it on one another. We’re meant to unite against the real enemy—God’s enemy—the one whose agenda remains division among the body of believers.

Scripture clearly defines our enemy in Ephesians 6:11-12.

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

A scheming devil wages war against the church with his army of evil. 1 Peter 5:8 reveals how he likes to attack.

Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

We’re in little danger when the pack unites. Together we’re too strong for him. The gates of hell cannot prevail against a healthy church (Matthew 16:18). He knows he must divide us to have any chance of claiming us for dinner.

Unfortunately, we can be quick to oblige, separating from our brothers and sisters over often petty differences. And sometimes we do more than keep our distance. Sometimes we become the teeth he uses to devour his prey.

You might be interested to read Proverbs 6:16.

There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him.

Guess what appears seventh on the list.

. . . one who sows discord among brothers (verse 19).

When we use the sword of the Spirit to cut one another down in the name of defending truth, we become tools in the hand of the evil one to sow discord among brothers. And God couldn’t be clearer about how He feels about it: He hates it.

Dear one, if we continue to fight amongst ourselves, we only advance the kingdom of darkness. Take a few moments to carefully consider Paul’s plea to the church at Ephesus, a plea the Spirit of the Living God still breathes to each of us through the page.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1-6

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Perhaps it’s time to look past our differences and let Christ’s love unite us. After all, it is men, not God, who have divided the body of Christ into many.

The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4

Only the Spirit of God can bring about the unity described in God’s Word. Only God Himself can take men and women with different backgrounds, beliefs and teachers and bring them into agreement about the mysteries of truth.

The day is coming, dear one. Christ will unite His church in love, and the world will know that Jesus is everything He says He is (John 17:23). They will come from every denomination, every tribe and tongue, all whose hearts answer His call and humbly seek the truth.

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:14-15

Interesting. Apparently the gospel of peace may require us to move.