Freedom!

I write this just a few days before our nation celebrates one of it's most enduring and popular national holidays, "The Fourth of July." Here I was earlier, sitting on my sofa watching the news this evening and becoming so fed up (and somewhat depressed) with all the news that I was hearing about the crisis in gulf, the problems with trying to get the oil contained and cleaned up - as well as the financial worries and concerns about problems relating to the violence between the drug cartels in Mexico and so on and so on - that I finally just grabbed the remote and shut the TV off in frustration... Sitting there staring at the blank screen for several moments in stunned silence! I started thinking about what our forefathers would have thought of all that is going on in our country - and world in the year 2010! Freedom... what does that word really mean anyway?

Even in what most of us would consider to be the most "Free" country in the world - are we really as "free" as we think we are? We chain ourselves down in multitudes of ways that we cannot always see just how "burdened" we've become to our "things." We label ourselves Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives; pro-this or con-that! We have a huge national debt crisis hanging over all of us in the form of paid and un-paid mortgage payments, car payments, credit card debt, bailouts for banks while schools scrimp on paper and pencils and books all the while we just keep seeing more bills, bills, bills! We burden ourselves with worry over a multitude of matters - from paying for our health care and worry over health concerns to how do we pay for our children to go to college or pay for school or daycare for our children. The list goes on and on!

So are we really free?

I just had to turn off the TV and now I hope you can see why I did... Arg! I just sat there for a few minutes breathing deep and trying to relax; letting my thoughts drift away for a few moments. It's times like that when I like to day-dream of being somewhere far away - a cool green meadow amidst the tall Ponderosa pines or maybe sitting on a quite stretch of beach listening to the ocean waves pound the shore... Then I had a song come into my mind! (You knew that was coming I bet, huh?) Just the opening line kept playing in my head over and over... "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom." (the Darrell Evans song - although there are several good "Freedom" worship songs - Charlie Hall has one I like)

That line comes from the book of 2nd Corinthians:

"But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:16-18 NIV)

The Lord's spirit give us Freedom. True holy freedom that overcomes all worry and fear which can hold us in bondage - holding us hostage and making us into slaves, held captive by the ways and things of this life.

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Gal. 5:1 NIV)

It helps me breath easier to know that as a believer in Christ, I am a "free" man because of His sacrifice for me on the cross and that he came to free us from sin as well as the burdens of slavery to all the ways and worries of this world.

This Sunday, when we are all out celebrating the fourth of July - singing songs like "God Bless America" or "America, the Beautiful" and watching the beautiful evening firework displays, eating BBQ and drinking our favorite soda and then capping it off with a dose of our favorite ice-cream or desserts... (ooh, I'm getting hungry already!) We should all pause, take a deep breath and relax for a few moments, remembering that if we walk in His spirit, we will have Freedom, and joy and hope and Peace! If we place our lives and everything we have in our Lord's hands - and thank God for his Amazing Grace, His grace that truly set us all free!

Blessings to you,

Dave