Self-Government

SCRIPTURE: And the Lord our God commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear him so he can continue to bless us and preserve our lives, as he has done to this day. For we will be counted as righteous when we obey all the commands the Lord our God has given us.’ Deuteronomy 6:24-25 NLT

QUOTE: “Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.” – John Adams, Founding Father, 2^nd President of the United States

THOUGHT: What is self-government? I’ve heard those words all my life without really thinking about what they mean until recently. Running through many of the comments of our nation’s founding fathers is the patently-stated observation that self-government – private virtue – is the soil necessary to a democracy’s life. Public virtue is built on private virtue. The other side of the coin is that by undermining personal responsibility, you can create a starving democracy.

Self-government is the ability of individuals to govern their own tendencies toward vice and to practice self-mastery in private. Truly such a concept can be traced back to the inception of a people in the wilderness of the Sinai – the reality that following the commands of a God who is named “gracious,” and “compassionate,” and “abounding in love,” would lead to blessing and life. All followers must do is trust that God’s law is as good as God.

So, what personal responsibilities have been so undermined that we find one of every four children in America lives in a fatherless home, and one in six struggle with hunger? Where have you and I abdicated personal responsibility that led to the glorification of violence and promiscuity in media and culture? When did we stop contending that our government represent our private virtues and begin, by default, to condone the sweatshops of foreign nations, the tearing apart of our own flesh in the womb, the sanctioning of raising money through gambling, the redefining of marriage and family and personhood and gender? When did self-government become big government making decisions that don’t even resemble the notion of private virtue that leads to public virtue and a flourishing democracy?

What time is it in America, and what season?

PRAYER: Oh God, my heart cries out at the picture of a nation where self-governance has declined so perilously. We may hold to private virtue, but we do not fight to protect the soil beneath our feet. So much of the life of faith lies in remembering the bigger story you are telling, the ways you have rescued and redeemed your people throughout history. Remind us of your good laws and how self-government, self-mastery, self-control – private virtue in which public virtue and democracy can grow – lead to life.