"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" ... is one of the most famous phrases in the United States Declaration of Independence and considered by some as part of one of the most well crafted, influential sentences in the history of the English language.
These three aspects are listed among the "unalienable rights" or sovereign rights of man, given by God.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
To understand them let's study their opposites.
Evil is the opposite of life. Evil is live spelled backwards.
"Evil is the desire of certain people to control others, to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their unpredictability and originality, to keep them in line."
Dependance, as the opposite of liberty.
Limited as opposed to abounding and growing.
Often these crimes are carried out by people in positions of authority, whose aim it is to avoid the inconvenience of life by transforming others into obedient automatons... robbing them of their humanity ...
Controlling, and limiting them.
Evil people limit the growth of others so as to limit the chance of competition and foster dependancy.
"For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. "
Confusion is one of the hallmarks of evil people. In the chaos of their lies they are free to slip and dodge while claiming complete righteousness. This is evil.
If a man is in leadership and is a confirmed liar, mark it down he is evil, and his orb of influence is marked by confusion.
"The evil are "the people of the lie," deceiving others as they also build layer upon layer of self-deception. It is not their sins per se that characterize evil people, rather is is the subtlety and persistence and consistency of their sins. This is because the central defect of the evil is not the sin, but the refusal to acknowledge it."
"Evil is further defined as the use of power to destroy the spiritual growth of others for the purpose of defending and preserving the integrity of their own finances and self image."
"They hold captive, not the strong but the weak. For the evil to so misuse their power, they must have the power to use it in the first place. They must have some kind of dominion over their victims."
The over emphasis on spiritual authority and submission come to mind ...
Holding you in check while they lie and manipulate the truth for financial and political advantage.
For adults to be the victims of evil, they must be made powerless to escape.
Communism and socialism, are comprised of a strong central power, and weak and helpless people in the system.
This is also one of the greatest crimes of welfare programs, they rob the individual of self respect and self reliance. it renders men as mindless wards of an all powerful state.
They may be powerless physically, mentally, held in check by virtue of their own failures of courage, or laziness.
"Evil can be primarily defined as that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, which seeks to kill life or liveliness."
And goodness is its opposite. Goodness is that which promotes life and liveliness.
The empowering of the individual, the promotion of life, is the crux of the gospel.
" I am come that you might have life, and that more abundantly..."
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is a central theme of the ministry of Jesus.
He calls us to dailey strive for excellence, ... to live.
He is the giver of all life.
He is the grantor of liberty, he came to open prison doors, to set the captive free...
He is the only liberator from the prison house of sin, and self imprisoning habits.
Pursuit of happiness can only come when your heart is right with God,
and you have dealt honestly and fairly with your fellow man
The church is to be a vehicle of hope and change in the lives of it members.
In the church people are to find the answers they need to become all that God has called them to be, to get from where they are to where God has called them to be.
"I am the way, the truth and the life!
"He is the way,"... to get from where you are, to where you want to be.
The church is to be a place where excellence is celebrated and promoted.
Where we see the value and possibilities that are dormant in each person.
Happy 4th of July.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Exercise your God given rights, to become, to grow, to reject the helplessness that tries to hold you captive in your mind.
I am not weak ... I am strong...
I am not helpless ...
I can choose a path towards God and Devine favor...
"If it's to be it is up to me"
I was re reading "People of the Lie" this week. If you have never read it it is a must read in my opinion. If you have, I got more out of it on my second and third reading than on my first.
Lm
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