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. Galatians 5:1 (NIV).
The basis of all human liberty is God. ALL of our other founders, even the deists, believed this. They enshrined that belief in our Declaration of Independence which espoused community belief in rights given by ‘nature and nature’s God.’ Freedom is a natural condition of humanity, the natural yearning of the human spirit because freedom is given by God, not government or other men. Mankind restricts liberty.
You could say that America’s real founding father is Jesus of Nazareth, God Immanuel, the Son of the triune God. Yes, the United States is a nation based in Judeo-Christian morals and ethics, with the predominant faith being Christianity. Yes, every faith is allowed here; we are free to worship as we please and, no, nobody is forced or required to be Christian (as is the case with Islam in many places and even some political ideologies here). Someone would have to be willfully blind to not see the influence that faith in Jesus has on this country.
No, I’m not going to preach further than that. This isn’t going to be one of those diatribes about how the US of A is going to hell in a handbasket. Or how we would all be better off if we followed God or lived more like His Son (I agree with that). Instead, just consider your freedom and thank God for it. Without God, it just wouldn’t exist.
Indeed, historically, the concept of liberty arose out of the wreckage of ancient Greece and Rome, especially after the fall of the Roman Empire. It was the church the preserved knowledge of democracy, and how God repeatedly set His people free in ancient times. It was the church that preserved both the Bible and the documents of antiquity on philosophy, mathematics, the role of mankind in the world, and languages. Without the church of Jesus Christ, there would have been no Middle Ages that gave way to the Renaissance, and the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the Puritan Migration. To deny these historical facts is to be willfully misinformed.
Everything we know about human liberty, about respecting others because they are naturally free human beings, came out of God’s Word. Most importantly, everything we value about freedom came from one man, Jesus, freely giving up His life so that you can I could have peaceful ones here and eternal lives with Him. Human history was largely an account of governmental tyranny, misery, and slavery, until there came a man who upended everything we knew so that we might better know nature’s God through Him.
For further reading: Matthew 23:4, John 8:32, Romans 7:4, 1 Corinthians 16:13, Galatians 5:2
Lord, You are the source of all our freedoms. You and You alone.
If you’d like to know more about Practical Proverbials, please contact aspiringwriterdt@gmail.com for more information
Practical Proverbs 