Freedom

My childhood was one of great freedoms. My brother and I would leave our home and wander all over the neighborhood with nothing to hold us back. We often walked blocks away from our house; sometimes crossing busy city streets unaccompanied by an adult. We discovered wooded areas where be built forts, a creek that we dammed up to make a swimming hole, and some great locations where we set up targets that we then destroyed with our rifles. We lived the experiences that most children of today will never get to know because of a world filled with ever increasing evil.

I am sure that many of our neighbors wished my brother and I had not been so free to wander and explore. Our freedom gave us the chance to do many fun things, but we were also able to get into some trouble as well. Our freedom was unfettered and we often squandered that freedom resulting in a loss of our freedom for a period of time.

Many people in the United States have forgotten that there is a price to win freedom and a price to continue in freedom. No, I am not talking about the political aspects, although there is much that could be said for that as well. I am speaking to the Christians in America. Our ancestors put their lives on the line so that we could have the freedoms that we have today. And it didn't start in 1776.

Many Christians during the first through third centuries were often tortured, stoned, beat, fed to lions, and even strung to a post dripping with oil as they were burned alive to light the paths of the Roman roads at night. All because they refused to renounce Christ. Martin Luther, commonly known as the father of Protestantism, was kicked out of the church because he believed in freedoms that the church would not allow. Other Christians suffered at the hands of the Bride of Christ: John Bunyan, Francis Bampfield, Hercules Collins, Thomas Delaune, Thomas Grantham, Thomas Hardcastle, Abraham Cheare, Vavasor Powell, and John Murton all went to prison because they were Baptists who stood against the Catholic and Anglican church states of Europe.

Of course we cannot forget the bravery of so many Christians who did help secure our freedom of religion here in the United States. Many men and women died so that we could enjoy that freedom along with countless others. So what have we done with our freedoms? From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.

God gave us a gift of freedom in America like nothing seen anywhere else in history. And for the most part we have squandered it through infighting, scandals, hate speech, segregation, divisions, power plays, and the like. Yes, Christians have also done some wonderful things in America: food  and clothing pantries and kitchens for the homeless and hungry, disaster relief organizations, drug addiction ministries, divorce care, counseling, and sharing Jesus.

It is in those moments that we take our eyes off of Jesus and place them on our own priorities, our own desires, and our own preferences that we have failed to utilize our God-given freedoms in a way that is honoring to the Father. Christians in America must get back to a priority of worship. Through worship we look upward to God. Through worship we look outward for the purpose of telling others about Jesus, helping others in His Name, giving of ourselves, or time, and our finances, and caring for fellow Christians and their needs. Through worship we look inward to see a sinner that is in need of a Savior and fight daily to keep ourselves holy and clean for God.

Freedom: from everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded.