He Paid The Price

August 5

There is a very profound observation making its rounds of the internet that says, “Only two entities have been willing to die for you—the American soldier who died for your freedom from political tyranny and Jesus Christ who died for your freedom from the tyranny of sin.

Those of us who are ‘of a certain age’ weep at the realization that it is the young who lay down their lives to keep us from the clutches of the terrorists whose vision of the planet is that all men will be bound by the religious tenets they espouse; it is the youth whose whole lives are before them, who lay them down that we may live in freedom.

In John 15:13, Jesus said, “There is no greater love than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The soldier puts his life on the line for the love of his country, for America and the freedom for which she stands, for the hope she has held out to all who have come in search of opportunity to realize life’s potential. And for this, we thank them with all our hearts.

But apart from the willingness of the One who spoke and the worlds came into being (Genesis 1:3-27 and John 1:3), the One to whom every knee shall bow and every tongue confess (Philippians 2:10, 11) to lay aside His deity (Philippians 2:7) in order that we might be saved, there would be no fulfillment at all of the great manifestation of love of which the Lord spoke or the freedom for which He laid down His life.