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Jesus watched as a woman shyly made her way to the offering box in the temple.  She quickly put in her small amount, and then hastily moved away; for there were those with much larger gifts waiting to give.  Jesus then said to his disciples,

“…of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all…”

(Luke 21:1-4)

He said this because she gave the last of what she had to live on, while others were giving a little of their abundance.  Jesus pointed her out and thereby honored her.

In my opinion, God recently honored one of His choice servants in an event which occurred in the Kentucky Legislature.

Tom Riner, a Pastor from Louisville, has served in the Kentucky Legislature over thirty years.  He is one of the most Godly men I know.  He has faithfully shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the hurting people of his city for longer than he’s been in the Legislature.  He is greatly respected among them as one who walks with God, and thus, genuinely cares about them.  He has led many prayer meetings on our state Capitol grounds on behalf of our state and national governments.  I’ve been blessed to pray with him on many occasions and the humility the Lord has worked in his life is deeply evident in his praying.  While he would not want me to say all these things about him, I felt it was necessary to enable you to see how God uses those who have a real walk with Christ.

Representative Riner is a soft-spoken Legislator who never draws attention to himself, but who works behind the scenes to influence our laws in a Biblical way.  This is evident even in his biographical sketch in the Directory of Legislators.  While most Legislators have a long list of their connections and accomplishments, under Tom Riner’s picture his bio sketch reads simply:  “Pastor.”

I believe last week we saw God honor Tom Riner because Tom has honored God.  Briefly, it happened like this: Last fall, Kentucky’s Supreme Court made a ruling which, in effect, cancelled our religious liberty in this state.  A bill was then filed in the House of Representatives, HB 279, which would reverse this bad decision of the Court.  The bill passed both Houses of our Legislature, but then Governor Steve Beshear vetoed the bill, coming down on the side of removing religious liberty.  Those of us who believe in religious liberty hoped it could be brought up in the brief two-day veto session, and passed over the Governor’s veto.  But, since the Democrats control the House of Representatives, their Party had to agree to bring it onto the House Floor, or it wouldn’t happen.  When the Party met on Monday night to debate this, the Party vote on it was 26 to 26—a deadlock; which means it would not be brought out onto the House Floor for a full vote.  In other words, religious liberty would start to die in Kentucky.  But then someone remembered Representative Riner was not in the Party Caucus meeting; he had not voted.  Actually Representative Riner has not met with the Party Caucus for years because he believes those meetings ought not be closed to public viewing.  When he was told of the vote, he quickly came and cast his vote to bring HB 279 onto the House Floor the next day.  It was voted on and passed by an 80% margin in both Houses.  Governor Steve Beshear’s veto was soundly defeated!  And God used a humble servant, Tom Riner, to restore Religious Liberty in Kentucky.  God honored the one who has honored Him to restore the most important liberty of all: The liberty out of which flows all other liberties!

Do you “reckon” God’s in control after all?

Think about it; because if you don’t, someone else will do your thinking for you—
and for your children!  And you won’t like what that brings to you.  I’m Don Pinson, this has been Think About It.