Let me ask you a personal question: Who owns you? Now stop and think about that for a moment. Don’t be so quick to answer. Who owns you?
Well, if you’re a Christian and you want to sound spiritual you would say, “God owns me.” Okay, my next question would be, “How much does God own of you? Does He own your head? How about your heart? How about your feet? Hands? Eyes? Would those items I mentioned above bear the mark of God’s ownership? And if God does own us, then how come much of what is written in the Scriptures are about our own responsibility to live a certain way? Why does God not simply force me to live one way rather than commanding me to?
We'll come back to who owns a Christian. For now, let’s ask, “Who owns the rest of the people?” For those who are not believers, who owns them?
I want to suggest in the real world in which we live, ownership of people boils down to this: “We all own ourselves.” Now I want you to consider this purely from the standpoint of there being no God. Because although many Christians would attest to God owning them, their lives would indicate otherwise. And since God’s ownership only applies to the believer, most in the world are not Christians. So, who owns us?
I own myself. You own yourself. My own life is my own private property. My life does not belong to anyone else. My body does not belong to another. I take care of it myself. I feed it myself. I dress it myself. I wash it myself – you catch my drift? I am my own private property and so are you. You belong to you.
If this is true, then acts that violate my own self-ownership are immoral acts. For example, if someone tries to murder me that would be an immoral act because it intrudes on my rights of owning myself. Acts of rape, theft, assault, are all immoral acts that violate self ownership.
Now what if I were to take what belongs to you, that is, what you personally own, and I give it to someone else without your permission? Would you consider that to be an immoral act on my part?
Our government, as fat as it is, takes my money and without my permission gives it away to someone else that it believes needs it more than I do. And the government also does this with you, so I am not alone. What would this be called? Theft! Taking something that does not belong to it (the government) and giving it to whomever or whatever it deems necessary (handouts).
Besides being called “theft,” you know what else we can call this? “Slavery!” Slavery is when another person controls what you own. Do you control thirty percent of your income, or forty percent, depending on what income bracket you fall into? You not only do not control how much is taken from you – through payroll tax, property tax, state tax, etc., you cannot control where it goes.
Now if you believe that your money does not belong to you, and if you believe that you belong to God and God has given government the responsibility to manage your life, then all that I am saying is mute. You are therefore the property of the U.S. Government. If you believe this, you can stop reading now. The rest will bore you.
Think with me for a moment. Do others have a right to receive handouts in the sum of momentary support? Does a person have a right to congressional handouts for housing, food and medical care?
Let’s ask this: Where does our government get handout money? The only way for Congress to give one American one dollar is to first, through the tax code, take that dollar from some other American. It must forcibly use one American to serve another American. Forcibly using one person to serve another is one way to describe slavery. As such, it violates self-ownership.
But this type of immorality where one person is forced to serve another does not stop here. Some regulations such as forcing motorists to wear seatbelts or wear a helmet violates self-ownership. If one owns himself, he has the right to take chances with his own life.
Some will argue that if you're not wearing a seatbelt or wearing a helmet and you have an accident and become a vegetable, you'll become a burden on society. That's not a problem of liberty and self-ownership. It's a problem of socialism where through the tax code one person is forcibly used to care for another.
Some will also argue that Congress is simply forcing us to help one another by forcing us to take care of ourselves, and that such force is a good idea. But let me ask you this: When congressmen and presidents take their oaths of office, is that oath to uphold and defend good ideas or the U.S. Constitution?
When the principles of self-ownership are taken into account, two-thirds to three-quarters of what Congress does violate those principles to one degree or another as well as the Constitution to which they've sworn to uphold and defend.
If we accept the value of self-ownership, it is clear that most of what Congress does is clearly immoral. If this is a perceived problem, there are two ways around my argument. The first is to deny the implications of self-ownership. You must affirm that you belong to Uncle Sam.
Second, let’s go back to the Christian. Who owns the Christian? If you still believe that God does, you are absolutely right. We have been bought with a price and therefore we are not our own (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
Since God owns me then why does the government think that it owns me as well? Sometime in the past, I chose (because I owned myself) to give my life over to Jesus Christ. I chose for God to own me. Since having done this, I do not wish to be owned by another. But clearly I am. So what do I do?
Well, I can fight against the government who thinks it owns me by supporting Christian Family Values. I can lobby against the homosexual agenda and rally against gay marriages. I can forcibly attack the issue of abortion and euthanasia.
Let’s say that I become successful. Have I won? Has government ceased its ownership over me? No, it still does immoral acts against not only my own self-ownership but also acts against my true owner God Himself.
So how do I get out from the tyranny of government ownership over me? I don’t. I can’t. Not now and certainly not in this dispensation. The only solution is for Jesus to return to set up His government which will rule with justice and righteous. To try to stop the government from owning me is impossible. Jesus has to do that Himself. Since He is my chosen Master.
If there is one thing I am certain about it’s this: Government is filled with injustices. God has called me not to change that, but to change people’s hearts. The church must show people that they really have no say so when it comes to self-ownership. We simply do not own ourselves to the degree with think we do. Something or someone else owns us. And although as a Christian I am owned by God, still I must admit that so does the government. I must live with this reality until Jesus comes and changes it for good.
I like this, I really do. You ask, “Why do you like being controlled by the government?” Because everyday I am reminded that this world is not my own, I am just passing through. And like the saints of old, I “desire a better country, that is a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16).
