One of my most intimidating Political Science professors was also an attorney. His exams were brutal. I used to think he hated us, but as time went on, I realized how he was shaping our minds. He was drilling information into our heads so we would never forget it. “Facts don’t lie,” he used to tell us. Nearly every single day he would tell us, “Facts don’t lie. People lie, but facts don’t lie. Remember that.”
I wrote it in a Sharpie on the outside of my notebook for his class. It was a mantra, so to speak, and he meant for us to remember it.
Fast forward to 2002, the very first Federal campaign on which I ever worked. My mentor was the Treasurer for the campaign and she told me the first time we spoke, “I’ll give you two pieces of advice. The first is this: checks don’t lie. If your math is wrong, then it’s your math. Your math would be wrong, not the checks. Checks don’t lie. The second piece of advice? Don’t mess up. Everything you do reflects Katherine. (Katherine Harris was the candidate; then Secretary of State for Florida, who was running for Congress).
This was advice we had to live by and consider our every move, our every word, our every email, our every conversation; what we said and did was a reflection of Katherine and her Congressional campaign. For every campaign after this, I held tightly to those words from my mentor, “Checks don’t lie, and don’t mess up.”
I have to tell you, the same feels very true even now. We are representing Jesus in every single thing we do. Every comment on social media … do we run it through a filter and ask if this glorifies God? I know I’m guilty of a snarky comment, here and there. Especially when it comes to politics. But I am also standing up for what is true.
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” - Philippians 4:8 (NLT)
I am not sitting back, quietly anymore, when someone attacks Jesus loving people. If someone says they love Jesus, but they love Donald Trump or Joe Biden more, they aren’t loving Jesus very well, which means they aren’t loving people very well.
A “pastor” recently came after Beth Moore on Twitter. Let me tell you something … it backfired. Other pastors immediately called him out for his tacky tweet and told him to apologize. (We are all still waiting for said apology).
The world is always watching us, looking to see how we respond during times of crisis. They are watching to see how we respond to our leaders and current events. The world watches our every move to see our reactions, and we are not going to win over people for Jesus if we have an angry tone defending angry people, rather than pointing them to Jesus.
Facts don’t lie. So fix your thoughts on what is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Those are the facts, and those facts don’t lie.