This weekend, many Americans will celebrate the freedom that they have living in this country. To be sure, it’s a huge blessing to be able to live in a country that allows us to have the freedom to pursue what we want to.
This weekend though, I was thinking more specifically about the freedom that we have as Christians. Much more important than the freedom that we have as Americans. The apostles of Jesus Christ had much less freedom from the government, and even religious authorities, to live the lives that they knew they must. Yet even still they persevered in the mission that God called them to.
As I think of the millions of Christians in America celebrating their freedom today (yesterday as of when this post is published), I wonder if they value their freedom in Christ half as much as their freedom in this country. After all, what has their freedom in Christ granted them? Does it bring them as much joy as their American freedom has?
Their American freedom has allowed them to have a job in which they are able to put food on the table (for themselves or their family), to drive (maybe even own) a car that they can take to work, on vacations, or for a drive anytime they want. They may own a house or rent an apartment. Maybe it’s even a bit small for their needs, but it works okay. American freedom also allows them to get their child a great education, either through outside teaching from schools or schooling them themselves (they have the freedom to choose [thanks again to America]). In general, if they desire to go after something, really anything, they can do it and people will encourage them and push them forward in it.
What has their Christian freedom given them? On the surface, it seems like maybe it’s given them a good community, it allows them to be convicted of their own wrongs (at least once a week at church), it encourages them to be a kind person which in turn makes them feel good about themselves. Maybe, if it’s someone really spiritual, it’s allowed them to open their house up on occasion to the outsider who needs some help.
In some ways, it seems like American freedom has actually given them more than the freedom in Christ.
But what if I told you that everything in the first paragraph under American freedom was actually still their Christian freedom? God has given us everything that we have. He is literally what allows us to take each breath. Without Him sustaining our very body, we would cease to exist.
Compound upon this that we are constantly doing things that break God’s heart. Not only sinning against Him but also hurting ourselves because anything that drives us further away from Him leads only to more despair and discontentment.
But instead of focusing on the fact that God has granted us all of these freedoms and joys in life, we like to get distracted by the things themselves and think that we somehow were the ones who worked to gain those things. As if we could do anything on our own.
In a way, the freedom that we have been granted by living in this country has blinded us to the fact that each thing has first been granted to us by God. More importantly, it distracts us from the MOST CRUCIAL thing that God gave us: Eternal life through his son’s death and resurrection, and the command to teach others about this good news.
We have gotten so comfortable in our “freedoms” that we forgot why we’re free in the first place. The apostles of Jesus were not in a free country. A country where people could do as they wished whenever they wished. They were under the control of Rome. You did as Rome told you. Because of this, they knew more than ever the importance to share the freedom that only Christ could give. Not physical freedom that could be granted by the authorities of this world, eternal freedom, that could only be granted by the very God who created us.
If you claim to be a Christian and you live in the USA, as you think about your freedom of living in this country, I encourage you to evaluate what freedom you value and remember why you have been granted freedom in the first place. There is nothing good that you have ever done on your own, it is only through Christ. Perhaps this will encourage you to live for the purpose you were created. To give glory to Christ and point those around you to Him. There are billions of people blind to this truth, whether living in physical freedom or not, they are living in spiritual bondage.
And how are they to hear unless you use your freedom to tell them?
If you are a Christian, you have most likely heard the story below, but I challenge you to read it this time and put yourself in the place of the man coming to Jesus. Replace the man’s wealth with American freedom and ask yourself if you would do anything differently than the man.
You have freedom in America, but at what cost does that freedom control your life?
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” – Mark 10:17-31
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