Thought for Thursday, July 4th

July 4, 2013                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Let Freedom Ring

If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

John  8:36

“A man is either free or he is not.  There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.”

-          Imamu Amiri Baraka

Kris Kristofferson wrote the following lines in a song entitled, ‘Me and Bobby McGee:’  “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loose.”

I can not with any definite certainty attest to Mr. Kristofferson’s intent that motivated this lyric, but from a strictly spiritual perspective I can take these words and draw the following conclusions:

Spiritual freedom by receiving God’s gift of salvation through His Son, Christ Jesus is absolute and once embraced, guarantees that there truly is a freedom by which there is nothing that we could loose that would have any consequence or merit.  Once we have life in Christ there is nothing of this world that we can loose that will have any significance or meaning to us, from an eternal point of view.

We loose death and its penalty.

We loose eternal damnation and the torment of Hell’s fires to infinity and beyond.

We loose a singularity of existence because now we have life in Christ and the presence of God, in the form of the Holy Spirit is living within us.

We loose a lack of purpose for we are alive in Christ and vessels for His service to accomplish His work and His good will.

And none of these are losses which we would mourn.

Yet we have gained life, liberty, the pursuit of righteousness; freedom, victory, peace, hope, joy and the list could go on and on.

Today we celebrate as citizens in a land where many have died so that we could have and can exercise freedom and liberty: as Christians we celebrate daily because one (God’s Son) died that we could have liberty and freedom beyond this world and for all eternity.

Even if tomorrow all our freedoms were gone and we could no longer live as we do in this land: nothing can separate us or take away from us the freedom we have In Christ and this freedom will last for eternity.

So, I guess it is fair to say that ‘Freedom’ in Christ is truly another word for nothing left to loose.   

Prayer:

Father, thank you for my forever freedom!