Freedom

"If liberty is to be saved, it will not be by doubters, men of science, or materialists; it will be by religious conviction, by the faith of the individuals who believe that God wills men to be free." -- Henri Amiel, Swiss philosopher 

Freedom.  What a beautiful thing.  On Memorial Day yesterday, we sat in the back yard and barbecued some chicken raised on Our Maker's Acres and enjoyed some peaceful family time together.  I hope you did the same.  We talked about the soldiers who gave their lives so that freedom and the American way of life might be preserved.  What bravery!  What courage!  What conviction!

We talked about how differently things might be today had America not mobilized its forces and fought against the evil of the Nazis and Japan.  The entire country unified and worked shoulder to shoulder to support the war effort.  Rationing took place. Victory Gardens were planted.  Civilian industry quickly switched gears to begin manufacturing wartime supplies.  Would this take place today?  Do we have the steely resolve we once had?

It is easy to ask these rhetorical questions.  It is easy to look outward instead of inward.  I read Eleanor Roosevelt's prayer, and thought it was thought provoking:

Dear Lord, Lest I continue My complacent way, Help me to remember that somewhere, Somehow out there A man died for me today. As long as there be war, I then must Ask and answer Am I worth dying for? – Eleanor Roosevelt’s Wartime Prayer

That is a sobering thought!  And it makes me want to be a better person.  Great men's blood seeped into the soil of foreign lands in a supreme sacrifice.  I am proud to be an American.  It is the greatest land on earth.

As I think of Freedom, I would be remiss to not mention the greatest sacrifice ever made.  That of Jesus dying on the cross - for me.  For you.  But He rose from the dead and defeated sin and the grave!

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  2 Corinthians 3:17 

The freedom spoken of in that verse is above and beyond the freedom we've talked about.  No, this freedom conveys freedom from the yoke of sin, freedom from former blindness to the things of God, freedom from the fear of Hell.

May the blinders come off.  May we come to know Him.  May we walk in that Freedom as Christ intended!

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”  - John Adams