True Liberty: Who Gives Us Our Freedom?

True Liberty: Who Gives Us Our Freedom? By Gary E. Shelton, CRP Director {PLEASE NOTE: With the introduction of our newer initiatives from the Christian Readiness Project (CRP), we also are adding a regular blog to our website. It will issue at least once or twice a week depending upon schedules of other events. It may also have comments on different schedules about real-time events. So, please look here often, and, THANK YOU for reading.} Well, friends, the 4th of July is right around the corner. Around here, folks are fixing up their grills, ice boxes are getting loaded down, and children are keeping an eye out for the first sparklers to be lit when the sun goes down. It is a wonderful time to gather with family, check in on neighbors, and enjoy the blessings of summer. But before we get too deep into the potato salad and the fireworks, I want us to pull up a chair and think together about what we are actually celebrating tomorrow. We call it Independence Day, and it is all about our freedom. If you look back at our nation's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you will find something incredible. These papers establish that the whole purpose of the United States of America is built on a simple guiding principle: securing freedoms from certain oppressive things, and securing freedoms for certain righteous things. But where did those freedoms actually come from? That is the big question, isn't it? If you read those old documents carefully, our founders recognized a truth that a lot of folks seem to have forgotten. Our liberty did not come from a king, a parliament, a human government, or even the law books. The absolute source of our freedom is the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Government didn't create your rights; God did. Human laws are just supposed to protect what God already gave you. Why is there so much arguing over our freedom today? If you turn on the television or look at the internet, the debate over our basic freedoms is louder and more bitter than perhaps ever before in our history. There are voices out there who want to turn things completely upside down. They want to make the federal government the source of all freedom. They want to make our rights so conditional and locked down with regulations that they become restrictive rather than releasing. Why is that happening? It is simple, really. A great reason for this confusion is that many people in our culture today do not believe in God anymore. Or, if they do claim to believe in a higher power, it is a god of their own imagination, not the living God revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. When a society stops fearing God, it stops understanding true liberty. What is our job as believers during these times? In these increasingly desperate days, our duty as Christians is clearer than ever. First, having a real, personal, saving faith in Jesus Christ is the most important foundation you can ever have. Second, we must stay completely faithful to Him, even when the culture drifts away. And finally, we must be a bold, loving witness to Him, of Him, and for Him to a world that is running out of answers. True freedom isn't the right to do whatever we want; it is the power through Christ to do what is right. So, as you go out to celebrate tomorrow, please stay safe. Have a whole lot of fun, but be careful out there on the roads and with the fireworks. Take just one quiet moment away from the music and the food to remember exactly how we became a free land in the first place. Sit down with your children and grandchildren and tell them where true liberty comes from. And most importantly, let's get on our knees and pray for God's help to keep our land free before it is too late. Summary Statement: True liberty is a gift from the Creator, preserved by the faithful, and sustained only when a nation remembers that its freedom is anchored in the sovereignty of Almighty God.