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We believe that discipleship is central to Christ's message of the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Reclaiming what it means to be Christ-followers, by implementing the principles and practices He taught us, will bring about lasting life-change and spiritual offspring. DEM seeks to educate, inspire, equip, and train everyday followers of Christ to adhere to the will and ways of God our Father, thus becoming more like Christ in our inner person and outer practice.
2024 Christmas News LetterPage 2
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Key to Good Government

“When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked are in power, they groan” – Proverbs 29:2 NLT

Most citizens believe that the U.S. Constitution governs America, but it does not! When the Founding Fathers were creating it at the Constitutional Convention, delegate John Francis Mercer affirmed:

It is a great mistake to suppose that the paper we are to propose will govern the United States. It is the men whom it will bring into the government and interest they have in maintaining it that are to govern them. The paper will only mark out the mode and the form. Men are the substance and must do the business.

The Constitution gives citizens the power to elect leaders, but if the wrong types of leaders are elected, the Constitution will be absolutely worthless in their hands. Exodus 18:21 gives the qualifications that make a good candidate for office. This passage was referred to by many Founding Fathers as a guideline for the type of person that one should consider for public office.

Here are the qualifications:

• they must be “able,” that is competent and qualified

• they must “fear God,” that is have a personal relationship with God, or be God fearing.

• they must love the truth, that is they listen to correction or rebuke and are open to sound counsel, and

• they must “hate dishonest gain,” that is they despise fraudulent perks that might dissuade them from voting according to truth.

Lax, incompetent, or unrighteous individuals rarely enforce good laws; and an excellent constitution is an inadequate guarantee for good government if competent and reliable leaders do not administer it. In America, whether the righteous or the wicked rule depends totally upon the choice of the voters; we ought to carefully investigate leaders and then choose those with moral and religious integrity.

Millions of evangelicals across America choose not to vote. If every professing Christian, however, voted according to their Biblical conscience, we would begin to see righteous men and women elected to public office.

Here are several ways to encourage Christians to vote:

  1. The Oregon Family Council has an excellent voters guide, www.oregonfamilycouncilvotersguide.org. Encourage your Pastors to put these out in your church at a back table in the foyer a month before the election. Buy or download the guide and hand them out to your friends. Talk about this guide on Facebook, and Twitter in your Bible Studies and in your webs of relationships.
  2. www.restoreamerica.org is an excellent resource for information about what we can do as Christ followers.
  3. www.wallbuilders.org is another outstanding source of Biblical directives to engage the political process.

Charles Finney, the famous minister in the Second Great Awakening, warned us:

The Church must take right ground in regard to politics… The time has come that Christians must vote for honest men and take consistent ground in politics… God cannot sustain this free and blessed country, which we love and pray for unless the Church will take right ground.


In Christ,

Dale

dale@daleebel.org