Happy Independence Day, everyone! The day we celebrate America’s Independence from England. So many freedoms were birthed with this great nation. The right to worship - the right to speak freely, the right to defend oneself and family… all these rights have made for a safe, honorable, and virtuous country. But they are being challenged.
Our identity as citizens is coming face to face with our identity as Christians. If our freedom-loving countries are overcome by Communism, will we still be free? I mean really free…?
The question comes down to what real freedom is. Is celebrating sin in city parades really freedom? Is being free to hate and rage against whatever we disagree with really freedom? Is having the freedom to choose what gender you want to be, really freedom? Is having sex with whoever you want, whenever you want, really freedom? Is having the freedom to kill your unborn baby really freedom? If it is, why is the nation unraveling at the seams? Could it be that freedom has been confused with unbridled selfishness?
The truth is, all of this is completely void of true meaning of freedom. Jesus said it well, “Very truly I tell you, that everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). Giving everyone whatever they want doesn’t make people free-er, this is Satan’s great lie. The opposite has occurred, it has made a whole country full of slaves to their own demanding lusts.
The last verse of Judges 21, succinctly states our current problem… “And everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Vs 25). Similarly, the last church in Revelation is the “Church of Laodicea,” which literally means “the rights of the people.” Once again, the people demand their rights as though they are synonymous with freedoms, but they’ve been deceived. Jesus told them they were, “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked” (Revelation 3:17).
True Freedom is found in Jesus alone. Only He can bring the freedom of forgiveness to a heart once chained in guilt and regret. Only His promise of courage and strength can bring freedom to one living among godless governments. When hopelessness grips our hearts as we watch our country become a mere shadow of what it once was, we hear the voice of Jesus remind us to follow Him, for “He is the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6). When we cling to Him, freedom - true freedom - is ours.
Dear ones, may we lift up our country in prayer and ask that God uses it for His glory throughout the world, but we must always remember that our Ultimate Freedom, the kind that can’t be voted out, is in the gift of Jesus. Period. There is no other. May we celebrate our Independence Day in this Light - that when we, “Know the Truth, the Truth will set us free.”
Comments