Freeeeeeedom!!!

Today is the 4th of July, which probably means nothing if you live outside of the United States. For those of us who do live in the United States, however, the 4th of July is what we recognize as our Independence Day. It is the day that we declared our freedom from the tyranny of Britain.

With that in mind, I've been thinking about freedom and how many people live within a free nation but are not very free at all. How many people are enslaved by some kind of major financial debt? How many are enslaved by sin? How many are enslaved with the American idea that more is always better? What does true freedom look like? There are undoubtedly prisoners in other countries who are imprisoned due to their faith but are still experiencing freedom in Christ. Similarly, there are people who are not in a prison of the usual kind but through poor choices are in a self-made prison that they can't see the way out of.

"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 In this sense, we are free to live for Christ because of what He's done for us. God grants us free will, and we are free to either choose Him or reject Him. If we choose Him, we are free to die to ourselves and pick up our crosses daily. Free to die, doesn't sound like it makes a lot of sense but it does when taken in relation to the kingdom of God, where many things are upside down compared to the rest of human nature. A leader is to be a servant to all, in a dog-eat-dog world we are to be open-handed and generous with the things God has blessed us with.

In the U.S.A., we take pride in being a free country. In my opinion though, that's only a surface level freedom. How many Americans are enslaved to the god of materialism? How many churches lead their people to worship at the altar of more and more stuff, bigger and better buildings, all the meanwhile ignoring the poor in their own communities? I'm grateful to live in a democracy, but I think sometimes people mistake patriotism or nationalism for godliness. God is not an American. God bless the USA? How about God bless the world?

As far as 'spreading freedom' goes, I'm much more of a proponent of civil disobedience and non-violent protests than shock and awe campaigns. Non-violent protests are able to get more people involved with your cause. Everyone can refuse to take a bus, not many people are willing to kill someone else for their cause.

Sometimes I like to listen to the Dave Ramsey podcast. Oftentimes, he has people call in to scream they're debt-free. He has them do a countdown and then yell at the top of their lungs, "We're debt free!!!!!" He always has the sound of Mel Gibson yelling freedom from the movie Braveheart in the background so you really get into it. He first asks the guest to share their story of how much debt they had and how quickly they paid it all off. It's really inspiring to see people come out from under all that weight that debt causes and they always say it's such a weight off their shoulders.

What if the Church started offering that kind of freedom? The kind of freedom that Christ alone can give? What would it look like if instead of getting lost in religiosity and expecting people to just get a hold of behavior management we actually worked on just introducing them to Christ and trusted Christ to do the work on the heart that only He can do anyways? The kind of freedom that causes people to scream, "I'm free!!!" Freed from sin, free to live a new way of life; where the dead is gone and the new has come on a daily basis.