Tax Rebate Time

In America the citizens are the governing authority although it seems less so with each passing decade. We choose our representatives and most executives to rule only at our pleasure. We wrote the contract by which the government can act. We wrote it to limit the authority government could have and use. We have no king! We did this because God blessed us with a better plan of government than any previously seen on this earth. We effected this change by rebelling against the authorities who ruled over us before having found them to be harsh, corrupt, and extracting the proceeds of our labor and resources. God blessed up to prevail in that rebellion. We have a duty to keep our government honest and limited to the purpose for and boundaries to which it was constituted. We owe that to those who will follow us. God will bless us if we are good stewards of what he permitted us to have. I fear that more and more we seek to enslave ourselves to a government that we hope will provide every need we have and doing so only encourages future generations to demand even more. Following this trend we will find ourselves back where we started but by our own hands. Pray that God spares us this calamity.

 

Consider the entire context of Phillipians, of its chapter 2, and of the phrases surrounding those you've quoted. Taken that way you will find it a much different message than suggesting non-Christian conduct including something such as "complaining" or debating about the redistribution of wealth by our government and most especially so considering, again, that in America we govern ourselves.

 

I plan to cash any check I get but I would be pleased if it were in proportion to what I paid instead of it being yet another form of redistribution of wealth. I would be even more pleased if the amount taken to start with was limited to fund only those things that our government should address rather than an endless stream of social engineering projects.