{"id":13755,"date":"2025-12-25T20:59:50","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13755"},"modified":"2025-12-25T20:59:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T20:59:50","slug":"kubal-the-government-shall-be-upon-his-shoulder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=13755","title":{"rendered":"Kubal: The Government Shall Be Upon His Shoulder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

For unto us a Child is born, u<\/span>nto us a Son is given; a<\/span>nd the government will be upon His shoulder. <\/span><\/strong>And His name will be called <\/span>Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, <\/span>Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. <\/span>Of the increase of His government and peace t<\/span>here will be no end<\/span><\/em> \u2026 (Isaiah 9:6\u20137).\n<\/p>\n

At the center of the announcement of the birth of Christ is the message that government is this Child\u2019s responsibility. It is Christ who shoulders the responsibility for government.<\/p>\n

Do you want state prayer alerts?<\/h4>\n

\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

It is not an accident that this statement is inserted in the middle of the announcement of His coming and His purpose. This statement about His government could be easily glossed over. But it is a vital part of the announcement of His coming and the roles He will play.\n<\/p>\n

As we look through history, we see the counterintuitive manner in which Christ accomplishes this responsibility for government: personal governance, and civil governance.\n<\/p>\n

Personal governance is the foundation.<\/h2>\n

The selfless message of\u00a0hope\u00a0and\u00a0love\u00a0is the most compelling in all of human history. Our Creator\u00a0was\u00a0willing to limit Himself to the form of a human body, live a spotless life,\u00a0and then die a criminal\u2019s death in order to provide for our forgiveness. This\u00a0is such\u00a0an\u00a0appealing and personal message that it is still attracting and changing lives two thousand years later. This Christ Child\u2019s governance over individuals\u2019\u00a0lives does not come through compulsion or external restraint, but rather through the message of sacrifice, love,\u00a0and forgiveness.\n<\/p>\n

We see this when we look at the sheer numbers of adherents to the Christian faith which have grown through every century since the first. The few hundred believers there were at the beginning have grown to number now over 2.5 billion, about one-third of the world\u2019s population. A simple glance at the trend lines will show that there is no other world religion that will eclipse the influence of Christian believers upon the individuals around them.\u00a0The individual governance\u00a0<\/em>of this Child continues to increase.\n<\/p>\n

Our Savior\u2019s governance is increasing in the civil arena as well.<\/h2>\n

God\u2019s increasing rule is not limited to individuals only. It also encompasses\u00a0nations<\/em>.\u00a0We know that just as every individual has a God-ordained divine purpose and a destiny, so does every nation.\u00a0<\/strong>Founding Father\u00a0<\/strong>Patrick Henry said it best: \u201cThere is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Through the centuries,\u00a0earthly rulers and kings have attempted to extend their territory through control, military advancement, and even conquest; by contrast, the civil governance of the Christ Child advances through an opposite tactic: freedom.\n<\/p>\n

The heart cry for freedom is embedded in each of us and is evidence that we are birthed in the image of our Creator. This God-given right\u00a0is\u00a0divine\u00a0in its origin and irrevocably endowed to each person. The right to life, liberty,\u00a0and the pursuit of happiness comes through self-reliance and self-restraint within the moral code of God.\n<\/p>\n

In our own nation, the restlessness created by\u00a0the longing for a\u00a0government that protects\u00a0individual rights and freedoms continued to simmer in human minds until the American Revolution. At the core of this revolution was the Christ Child\u2019s concept of individual liberty and an eternal moral code superseding\u00a0the authority of kings. Our Founding Fathers gave birth to the freest nation in the history of the world by declaring independence from Great Britain and then adopting the Constitution of the United States.\n<\/p>\n

Our Constitution, based on the biblical principle that it is\u00a0God<\/em>\u00a0who creates laws, enabled the United States to become a beacon of liberty and freedom for the entire globe for centuries. Humankind will forever marvel at the advances freedom took through the United States. The increase of His governance is fueled by our God-given thirst for freedom.\n<\/p>\n

As we celebrate this Christmas, let\u2019s\u00a0embrace and be thankful for the long view of\u00a0the increase of His government <\/em>through our personal lives and in our nation.\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying for the increase of His government? Share your prayers and scriptures below.<\/h4>\n

(Photo Credit: Arturo Rey on Unsplash)
\n \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 3 minutes For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end \u2026 (Isaiah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[210,4032,4033],"class_list":["post-13755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-government","tag-kubal","tag-shoulder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}