How hard work relates to our expectations from government, because a healthy attitude towards work prevents us from becoming slaves to government give-aways. Most people hate to work, working hard or otherwise. They see work as a means to an end, getting what they want in this life. But this is the wrong attitude. God made us to work. Since the fall of Adam, the curse of the “ye shall live by sweat of your brow” has been on us all. But before the fall, God gave Adam tasks to tend to even though he was “in paradise”. Work is necessary. Our bodies become mush if we sit around all day and do nothing.
Table of Contents
- 1 How hard work relates to our expectations from government
- 2 Government “Equality” laws likewise lessen self worth.
- 3 Why do we need to work?
- 4 God’s purpose in establishing governments
- 5 Humans need to work, and work hard
- 5.1 First, stealing is wrong.
- 5.2 Governments are to reward good and punish evil
- 5.3 Work is to be pushed instead of stealing
- 5.4 The government should rarely be giving out money
- 5.5 The Government should encourage people to work and give
- 5.6 Physical Labor is a prize in man and God
- 5.7 Our Objective should be to Work at what is Good
- 5.8 We should be charitable to others less fortunate
- 6 More Articles on Opinions and Editorials
How hard work relates to our expectations from government
Work helps us to concentrate on our lives in a healthy fashion. Before we understand work and what should be our attitude towards work, we need to first understand that we are God’s creatures. You cannot get around some facts here. God is the only Supreme Being and that He created us. We must go to God in order for God to sustain us with our daily needs. You cannot make it in life without God taking an active part in your life. Although we are supposed to ask God for our needs and desires through prayer, that does not negate the obvious that God provides for us through giving us opportunities to work. God’s gift to man is work. It is good for people to be occupied with work.
Work causes self dignity
An important result of working is to have self dignity. If a person buys a car with his own hard earned money, he is proud of what he has done. Equally so, he is proud if he buys his own house with the fruits of his own work. When a person steals or is given a car, he enjoys it just as much as the above person, but that person considers himself as “lucky.” The concept of luck excludes God and His direct actions in anything. Instead of hard work providing his needs, he did something that did not represent anything honest nor is hard work. So hard work represents the worth of that person. He can be proud of what he or she is because his work provides for his own needs.
Government hand outs degrade people’s self dignity
When government steps in and provides food, shelter, medical needs, and even cars and telephones and such for free, then what does that do to the recipients? It makes them lower their view of their own self worth. They are not successful in life. They are not adults, but children that “uncle Sam” must care for. This is not how God has designed things nor is it how He desires things in our lives.
Government “Equality” laws likewise lessen self worth.
So at some point, government intervention with public assistance causes a loss of self-dignity. When the government forces or coerces companies through prizes and chastisements to promote people on the basis of their skin color, then this also works the same.
People get into jobs that are well paid. But they did not get there licitly. In other words, their talent and abilities and hard work are not what put them there. The government put them there. This again is attributed to the Democrat party that is behind all of this. But they cannot escape God’s rules and principles. Their self worth and dignity has been destroyed. They are taking somebody else’s job when the other person was better qualified, and they got in only because of their skin color and the Democrat party. For those who are qualified and are a minority, then their achievement is gutted. Getting a good paying job by talent and hard work is belittled by people who get the same job by trickery and illicit means. The government placing somebody into a position simply because of their rhetoric is illicit.
Why do we need to work?
If we go back to the Bible, to Adam and Eve in the garden, we find that Adam and Eve sinned or disobeyed God. As a curse on them and all their descendants, they would only live well in this life if they work, and “by the sweat of their brow” they would make it. To conscientiously work is based in a person accepting this judgment of God on man’s sin. In other words, we accept our condemnation from God. Although we were not in the garden with Adam and Eve, we inherently sin and are also cursed in God’s eyes. When people deny that reality, or some people even deny that God even exists, then they will never have any kind of correct attitude about work. Work is a consequence of the garden and God’s curse on Adam and Eve. We work because we have to work. That is the situation that their action has place on all mankind.
Stealing then is the refusal of a person to accept this situation and rule that God has placed on us. We work in order to survive. Those who steal refuse God’s honest work commandment and go about working dishonestly or not working at all if they can get away with it (think public assistance). How hard work relates to our expectations from government is simply that the government should stop, seek out, and punish those who steal.
God’s purpose in establishing governments
God has ordained that each government maintain order in their country. Those who would take advantage of others by stealing (which is wrong in God’s eyes, it is a sin and crime), then the government has the charge from God to seek out and punish those people. The government is to esteem and reward those who work honestly. Our present government seems to have missed these points completely. The Democrat operating plan is to give to whom they want all they can from the federal treasury (our tax dollars). They get Democrat voters out of this action.
Humans need to work, and work hard
God knows that when people have excessive luxury and free time, that their lives tend to vice or sin. Why is working hard such a problem for so many people? Laziness and slothfulness are just a natural part of the sinfulness of human nature. Instead of obeying God to be hard working and industrious, people prefer to rebel. People do not have a saving relationship with the Savior, therefore they rebel against God and His principles. God commands us to work hard to supply our needs. Hard work allows us to enjoy our resting times. Without work, rest becomes a complicated situation. Why do we need to rest when we are not working? We don’t. So people become active in non-essential and silly things instead. That gives them a false feeling that their rest is good.
Ephesians 4:28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
God commands all people to do a few things here. Let´s examine them one by one.
First, stealing is wrong.
To take by force (or by law as when the government inappropriately takes many times) that which is not lawfully yours is stealing. God says we should pay tribute to our government, which in Bible terms is taxes. Okay. So we cannot get away with not paying them. God also says in Romans 13…
Romans 13:3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
Romans 13:4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Romans 13:5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
Romans 13:6 For for this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God’s ministers, attending continually upon this very thing.
So as a Christian, we understand that we are to obey our government. We are to pay our taxes to them. How hard work relates to our expectations from government does not alleviate the citizen from paying his taxes.
Governments are to reward good and punish evil
This principle is what is so wrong with our day. Our government, at least some in our government that is, have these reversed. They punish hard workers and reward lazy, evil people. God says hard work is good. God approves and commends doing good work with our hands (physical labor).
So the fruits of hard working people are given via government intervention to lazy people who are not working. If they were to only give to invalids, the elderly, or such, that would not be so bad. That would actually be good. But the government also gives to lazy people, some of which have unreported sources of income, and may actually be making a lot more than the people whose taxes pay for their public assistance. The attitude of a thief is to get all you can any way you can. This is their spirit exactly. Our government has long ago ceased to make any attempt to get the fraud out of public assistance programs. Since the people on these programs vote Democrat as a rule, Democrats defend what they are doing.
Work is to be pushed instead of stealing
Ephesians 4:28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
When we consider diligence versus laziness, work, hard work, diligent work, industrious work is to be pushed by government instead of lazy and sloth habits. Moreover, among citizens, we need to prize and esteem hard work among ourselves. We should tend to pay what things are worth when people work hard to produce them. We should automatically reject get rich quick schemes.
The government should rarely be giving out money
How hard work relates to our expectations from government in that government should not encourage pay outs for people to do nothing when they are healthy and can easily work to support themselves. There are invalid and old people who need some help from the government. They cannot support themselves. If we were to weed out these able bodied workers from the system and take what public assistance the government is presently giving to them, and give that to those who are invalid or old, then they would get probably double what they are getting now.
But the problem is that government in general nowhere thinks of really helping these people who need help. All of these programs and actions are simply different ways that Democrats get people to vote for them. News flash! Democrats also get old and get invalid from accidents! So why not work to raise these really needy people’s public assistance? Inflation destroys what little savings the common man has. Our country does not have to have high inflation if they wish to keep it under control.
The Government should encourage people to work and give
Instead of being the intermediator of charity works, the government should leave that alone. Religious institutions do that work much better, and even one on one voluntary charity acts are better at discerning frauds. The government doesn’t have a mandate in the Constitution to distribute charity. They cannot distinguish between fraudulent cases and real cases. They are party inclined instead of politics blind in this.
Physical Labor is a prize in man and God
God especially prizes people who simply work hard doing physical labor. Not all work is like that, but we should not despise physical labor as being bad. In God’s eyes, physical labor is very honorable. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans despise physical labor and any kind of activity (work) that produces sweating. I have always wondered why people do not work hard AT THEIR JOBS, but then when they go home, they have to exercise to work up a sweat. People are hard to understand sometimes.
Our Objective should be to Work at what is Good
Ephesians 4:28 Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.
Note that we are to work at the thing which is “good.” So many people work so very hard at scamming, scheming, or just stealing from other people. Theft (stealing, “let him that stole steal no more“) is condemned from the beginning. All thieves are basically lazy. While they will work extremely hard at stealing, they will not direct that energy into honest work. They reject God’s commandment to work and sweat.
How hard work relates to our expectations from government should direct our expectations and desires from our government towards what is good. Do not be deceived by people in government redefining what is good.
We should be charitable to others less fortunate
The last part of this verse commands us to help those who are in need. But God does not overthrow the entire verse by the last phrase. These people in need must be doing their part (the first part of the verse, trying to work hard) before we should help them by charity. The entire thought is a complete unity. God is not saying we should work so others don’t have to work. That they live off of hard workers.
In reality, our entire governmental system is becoming exactly that. The hard workers pay high taxes so that so many others can live without doing any hard work. It is completely beyond understanding why the whole rest of the world is invited into our country to live from our public assistance programs when our people are barely making ends meet. Why? Who decided that we should do that? The Democrats and a few Rhino Republicans.
Let’s examine briefly the concept of charity. Charity has to be voluntary. In other words, it ceases to be charity as God designed this when somebody (i.e. the government) forcibly takes your money to give to whom they desire to give it to. That is not charity but robbery. A thief is easily identified and condemned when he takes something from that person for himself to spend and enjoy. But the thievery becomes more complicated when a thief makes a pretense of taking in order to give to somebody else (his accomplices) in the “name of good.”
That is simply our government at work.
Whenever somebody takes what it not rightfully theirs to take, it is stealing. How hard work relates to our expectations from government is simply that government should encourage hard work, not burden the worker.
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- What is wrong with our Political Parties?
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Getting People Really Saved. The one true objective that takes priority over all other objectives is the gospel. If our people are not saved, nothing else will matter as much. This article in churchplantingworkshop.com investigates the question of not explaining clearly the plan of salvation and those who are witnessed to not understanding the plan of salvation.
Topics: Overview | Jesus Taught us of the Existence of "Tares" | Evangelism is very important, but also INSIDE THE CHURCH | Essentials in Fruit Production. (1) Bible reading/studying. (2) A Biblical sound local church. (3) Solid Expositional Teaching. (4) Exposure to real prayer power. | Harmful Elements: (1) False teaching. (2) Sinful conduct by supposedly good Christians. (3) Sins and crises that distract and disable a person's Christian life.
Read the tract: Getting People Really Saved.