What will you do with it?
Happy birthday America! Today, the Fourth of July, we celebrate the United States of America’s birthday. We equate this holiday to the first time the Declaration of Independence was presented in public. At that time it is believed that only a handful of people signed it, John Hancock being the first. I wonder how those men felt as they agreed to present this declaration to Congress. It was a document “demanding freedom” from the mother country, (England), because of things like, unfair taxation without representation. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief, knowing after some struggle, and lives lost, we gained our freedom to become an independent nation.
What have we done with this freedom we gained? Women of that day would have worn on average about 17 pounds of clothing, modestly covering their body. Today if you were to go out to observe people on the street, you would be amazed at how little they covered their own bodies, often it appears there wearing their underwear on the outside of their clothes. So what has changed, that we would take this new-found freedom for granted? The Bible refers to this problem as ‘a cloak of maliciousness’, using a new-found freedom, instead of freedom from sin, we use it as the freedom to sin. I don’t think our forefathers would even recognize what we call society today.
While the forefathers of this country drafted a document declaring what it would take to gain our freedom, God drafted a book that tells you how to guarantee your freedom from everlasting damnation. In the pages this holy book, is the outline for your freedom, carefully laid out so everyone could understand it. This freedom came at a very high price, which someone else willingly paid in full for us. The truth is that Jesus Christ sacrificed his life so you could have the freedom to live with him for eternity. The Bible also tells us that the truth shall set us free. So the question is, what will you do with this freedom that is being laid at your feet? If you accept it, you will have the freedom from damnation for all eternity. If you do not accept the articles of redemption and freedom, you will be indentured to sin and damnation for eternity. The choice is yours, liberty and freedom, or slavery and condemnation.
As parents we need to teach our children about our God-given freedoms not just our national freedoms. Both came at a high price, and that price was blood. The blood of soldiers made us free citizens of this world, the blood of Jesus Christ will make us free citizens of our heavenly world. Our children need to understand and appreciate both types of freedom.
We as authors often times skirt around ideas or plot lines that would not be politically correct. More times than not any mention of religion is a sensitive subject, and can ruffle feathers. So while we still have the freedom to voice our opinion and our beliefs, what will they find you standing for, the freedom of sin, or the cloak of maliciousness? The choice of freedom is yours, what will you do with it?
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.
Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.
I Peter 2:16
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
II Corinthians 3:17
Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Galatians 5:1
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32