The Fourth of July is my favorite National Holiday. Warm weather, fireworks, watermelon, picnics – what’s not to love! I am especially thankful that I live in the United States of America where we live in a country that began with the dream of desperate hearts of men and women who wanted a place where they could worship, live, and work with freedom.
Without a doubt the most important freedom to those who settled in this country was the freedom to individually pursue their faith in God and to live out daily a personal relationship with Him. They understood what spiritual freedom meant, for Jesus Christ had cleansed their sin and set their hearts free from sin’s dominion. With that taste of sweet freedom they wanted to enjoy a life free on every level.
I have learned a lot of “shade tree” theology – practical theology – from The Andy Griffith Show. One of the recurring characters on the show was Otis Campbell, the town drunk. Every weekend, Otis would get himself plastered and check himself into the Mayberry Jail. He wasn’t arrested, taken into custody, or detained in any way; he would come in voluntarily and lock himself in the cell. I guess he figured he was safer sleeping it off in the Mayberry jail than facing his angry wife at home.
Spiritually speaking, all of us are like Otis from time to time. I am not suggesting we get drunk or anything like that, but we do often choose to incarcerate ourselves in sin’s jail cell. Jesus has declared us free, we can rise above sin’s influence in our lives, yet we choose instead to revel in the spiritual drunkenness of sinful attitudes, wayward habits, deceitful motives, and unbridled thoughts. And sometimes before we ever realize it, we are once again in bondage to that which seems positively pleasurable.
What a shame to know freedom in a civic sense, but to miss out on the spiritual freedom made possible through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary. As you celebrate our country’s birthday this year, remember the freedom given to us by Jesus Christ – the freedom to enjoy life the way He created us to enjoy it.
The prospect of living out a passionate pursuit of God was the motivation for risking everything to those who founded our country. In that same spirit, let us with reckless abandon rebel against sin and its desire to enslave us and let us walk in the true freedom of a life lived in Jesus Christ.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1