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When America’s Founders wrote and approved our Declaration of Independence they understood something most of us were never taught. That is, only a people who walk by internal self-government are qualified to maintain external civil government. Because they had been reared in the Biblical thinking of the Great Awakening, they understood than governing one’s self by the power of the Holy Spirit within was the only foundation of good civil government. A people who are not controlled by their own principles of morality will have to be controlled by a large civil government. And a large civil government means less liberty for the individual, the family, the church, and society as a whole.
Robert Winthrop, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in the mid-1800s, stated it precisely when he said,
“All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Continue reading
“Jesus’ followers had been together a lot during those ten days after He had returned to heaven. They had opened their hearts to each other in a way they had never done before. Somehow, reflecting on Jesus’ different appearances made it easier to bare one’s thoughts – the hopes and the fears. This opening of the heart began to work a oneness, a unity among them that made them feel as if they were a real part of the others: An actual body of believers, joined together by the same thinking, moving in the same direction.
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