Hi all,
All over the world governments are warring between liberal and conservative, free-will based or government based rights, and things have gotten nasty and dirty, at least in the US. As individuals we too war over self-governance. We war within ourselves between no rules, let me do as I want, versus living within rules and regulations and obligations for our lives. The governance, or stewardship of our lives individually and therefore as federal governments do have certain God-given elements to them, whether all people want to acknowledge Him as Creator and Source of these things or not.
It seemed good to me and with much peace that I share key elements of that which God has given to all mankind as it relates to both personal governance over our lives, as well as governments over nations. I will state the 6 points which flow rather easily one to the other, and then go into a few details.
Once you understand these you can very easily find the Lord’s will, understand issues others are having, how HE would lead you personally when you don’t have clear direction, and where He would lead a government. You’ll be able to help others too. So let us start at the beginning, the flow is in order from I through VI (1-6).
I) Free will was given by God to man and provides core characteristics of self and federal governance.
II)Man has been endowed by his Creator with intelligence and emotion by which to direct free will. These are the qualifications of self and federal governance.
III) Enlightenment is the seat of inner knowing of right and wrong, and is the source of conscience and guilt. This is the revelation of governance, self and federal.
IV)Relationships are the opportunity for proper governance, of self and federal.
V) Obligations are the requirements of self governance and federal governance of a people.
VI)Consequences are the enforcement of self governance and federal governance of a people.
Notice the flow from free will embodied in beings that have both intelligence and emotions by which to direct their free will. These then flow into revelation of how best to be a steward of free will with our intellect and emotions directing relationships. These provide the opportunities for a proper life. From these then flow obligations and consequences…it all flows, and all these things were given us in Christ before times eternal – by us I mean mankind, by our Creator. Let us begin…
I) Free will – Given from Creator to His highest creation, man. That man has a free will is seen by the choices and responsibilities and consequences in the Garden – eat or don’t eat, your choice, but there will be consequences either way, good or bad.
Because God has the ability to create He must also have the ability to control that creation. Yet He created free-willed beings blessed and burdened with the responsibility to be stewards of their free will, determining how to live and all that goes with living. God works by invitation in a person’s life on the small scale, while retaining control on the large scale over creation and will step in before mankind self-destructs.
A person is directed to exercise their free will, governing their life themselves, forging plans and design, goals and objectives; they are responsible for their lives.
The Lord will lead people towards self-sufficiency by urging them to work for a living – support themselves when possible. The Lord will cause us to stand before Him 1 on 1 to give account for our lives, again illustrating free will and ultimate accountability to our Creator.
By contrast an amoral person will live according to cause and effect, situational ethics, unstable and unable to form godly plans, marked by no accountability.
An amoral person will use their free will not to build their own lives, but to manipulate others to serve them, thus tearing down the lives of others, seeking to take advantage of the free will of others so that they will not have to ‘stand on their own two feet’.
Characteristics of government in free will – The means by which free moral agents (people) arrange laws and rules to live peacefully
That God gave mankind free will among other rights is recognized in the US Declaration of Independence: “We recognize these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness.” (Unalienable means un-challengable and unchangeable. No person nor government can give rights nor take them away – God gave them.
A government that recognizes these truths will be directed towards free will by its citizens with limits placed on a moral level which promote godly free will.
Such government recognizes the role of government is the protection of God-given rights, not the provider of rights.
By contrast, an amoral government will seek to establish itself as the giver of rights, giving rise to governance by cause and effect and situational ethics.
The amoral government believes government is the giver of rights, and can give and take them away at will. However as we will see, God’s gift of free will has 5 other elements which cannot be separated from that free will.
And I’ve run out of room – more next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
