Last Wednesday I was watching the news when the Mayor of Los Angeles made his announcement that he and his wife were divorcing. He had admitted to being unfaithful to her through an extra-marital affair with a newspaper reporter. During his announcement he said that he thought that the citizens of the city would understand and that this situation would not hurt his chances for re-election. He said that he had kept the promises of his previous campaign platform and that was important to the people –that a politician keeps his promises. O, yeah? What about the promises he made to his wife when they appeared together at the marriage altar? Why should the people of L.A. think that he would keep the promises to them, when it has become evident that he couldn’t keep them to his wife and children? Do politicians think we are stupid? I think they do. Do you remember the one who said that his private life didn’t affect the performance of his public office? He even had us questioning the definition of the word “is”, and what is defined as sexual relations.

Faithfulness and commitment to any cause relies on the inner character of the person not on the extenuating circumstances of the situation. Or to put it another way, when we make promises it will be our character that keeps us faithful to those promises not the circumstances outside of ourselves. For instance, a man and wife are married. They have vowed to be faithful to one another. One of them commits adultery. Does that excuse the other to commit the same sin? Just because one spouse breaks the marriage vow does not justify the other to do the same. What is it that keeps the faithful spouse from committing the same sin? Their character! In the Army, we call a soldier who breaks his promise a deserter. In Christianity we call it backsliding and hypocrisy. But in today’s world, the “powers that be” expect us to believe that a man’s character means nothing when it comes to public service. But let me ask you this: Would you mind if a teacher, who has admitted to pedophile urges, teach your child? But what if he told you that his personal life did not affect his public service? Would that ease your worry? If I were an owner of a shop, I wouldn’t hire a liar and a thief to be my accountant. It should be the same for our public servants in Washington and other governments. If these men cannot be true to their families, how can we expect them to be true to us? Thank God we have a Savior who is faithful with the perfect character to remain faithful!