Saturday, April 20, 2024
July is FREEDOM month in America and it’s wonderful to live in a FREE country. But have you ever thought about where our freedom came from? The Bible says Freedom was God’s idea and that Jesus came so all people could be free. Moreover it says that knowing the TRUTH is what sets us free (John 8:32), that Jesus is the TRUTH (John 14:6) and that wherever His SPIRIT is present there’s FREEDOM (2 Corinthians 3:17).
We tend to think of FREEDOM as a political thing. But governments and people by their nature will eventually work toward the control of society and the suppression of freedom. History confirms this and what it also confirms is that the ONLY way to avoid an ultimate destiny of bondage is by having God involved as much as possible in the process of ongoing governance. No friend, real freedom can ONLY come from the presence of God, not because I say so but because the Bible says it.
The folks who started our country must surely have been some of the wisest people who ever walked the planet. Many of them had grown up during the First Great Awakening (1730-1755) and had learned about true freedom from their Pastors. At the time though, they were living under an English monarchy that was progressively suppressing their freedom and they weren’t all that happy about it. In other words, their rulers were operating in a way that contradicted their understanding of Scripture and the teachings of their churches which they felt they were entitled to enjoy.
That our founders were wise is universally accepted. But how did they become so wise? They wanted to do something that had never been done before which was to set up a system of governance that wasn’t a theocracy but that was based on biblical principles. They wanted a system that would provide order but not trample on the inalienable rights of their constituency. Men would place themselves voluntarily under the authority of the Word of God and use that as a foundation for freely selecting their leaders and governing themselves. Most of the founders were Christian believers and their wisdom came straight from the Word Himself.
They concluded that the new type of government they wanted would include protections against their natural tendencies to usurp God-given freedom. They did the best they could. They based the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution on biblical principles. But as the decades and centuries go by, the involvement of God in our governance has gradually declined and people are reverting back to their natural tendencies.
But there’s good news to be shared. The Bible says that whomever the Son sets free is free indeed (John 6:36). In other words, no matter what happens, the true Christian believer has been set free from sin, death, fear, emotional problems, worry, anxiety, the Adversary, addictions and a host of other things that want to put us in bondage. Indeed, the true believer has been recreated in the image of God and the nature of God is freedom.
Here’s the sequence: believe in Jesus - continue in His Word - know the truth - receive your freedom. This will work every single time! But it’s the ONLY way to the real FREEDOM of God that our founders used to build a new country.
NEXT WEEK: THE BLESSING OF FREEDOM
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