“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” ~ Ronald Reagan
Most of what we call ‘rights’ today are better described as desires. We desire better health care, higher pay, and greater pleasure and ease. These are all things we can obtain, but at the expense of our labor and hard work, or what our Founding Fathers called, ‘the pursuit of happiness’ (meaning to be content). This pursuit, along with ‘life and liberty’, are called inalienable rights, and they are endowed to every human being by God, our sustainer and provider (Jehovah Jirah). We are free to live this ‘life’ that is breathed into us by God, by the natural laws and limitations of His design or will. We are also at liberty to operate in this life, unconstrained by what brings harm and corruption to God’s creation and its design. All of this means we have these inalienable rights only because God endowed and sustains them, and we are able to pursue happiness and find contentment only within the confines of His will. Jesus summed this methodology up perfectly when He stated, “I am the Way (method), the Truth (design), and the Life (source), and no one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6)
There are many enemies to our freedom founded in God, the greatest of which is ‘selfish ambition’; the idea that man doesn’t need God and can establish and sustain his own life and liberty. Paul describes mans desire for autonomy in Romans 1:18 as, “suppressing the truth in unrighteousness” and “exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man.”
Because God ‘is Love’, He allows man to choose which path he will travel; to do otherwise would be ‘unloving’ and totalitarian. Those that choose the path of ‘corruptible man’, God in His perfect love, “…gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” (Romans 1:24-25)
But God does not do this without a fight; “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world (and its choice), but to save the world through Him.” (John 3:17) “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes (chooses live at liberty within the boundaries of His natural law and design, His will) in Jesus will not perish (in corruption) but have eternal (incorruptible) life.” (John 3:16)
Jesus has fought for your salvation on the Cross and has defeated your greatest enemies, sin (living against God’s design or will) and death (the result of that choice). No matter what you have done, when you, by faith call on His name, and join His revolution, you are guaranteed eternal life in God’s presence.
Not only has Jesus done this, but He continues to fight for you because the enemy is at the gate of your life, desiring to corrupt you with its lusts and pride. But as He told Peter when Satan wanted to ‘sift Him like wheat’, Jesus says to you, “But I have prayed for you, that your faith will not fail. And when you repent, (turning again to me), strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 21:31-32)
You are not alone; Jesus has led the revolution and defeated our enemies of ‘life, liberty, and pursuing contentment in Christ.’ And He continues to walk with you through every skirmish along the way Home. Won’t you walk with Him, enjoying the strength and security His presence in your life provides?
Choose wisely….
“…In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)
Praying 4 U
Written by David Brown: David Brown is a husband, father, grandfather, Pastor with a Masters of Religious Studies and a Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Religions. Dave is the Associate Pastor of Pemberton’s First Baptist Church. He is the author of two devotional books, “From a Chair by the Window.” And “#PrayerWinsThe Day”.
