The Fourth of July

July 4

Today is the ‘birthday’ of the United States of America. This country enjoys the unique heritage of being established by Christians for the purpose of ascertaining religious freedom to all people of faith in Jesus Christ. It has since expanded its scope to include religious freedom for all people of all persuasions. Perhaps in gaining that dimension, the nation has lost something. That is for the Holy One to decide.

But one thing even the finite minds of mortal men may correctly ascertain is that a once great nation is in a free-fall from its lofty estate. We can blame our leaders for the corruption with which they have sullied our great Constitution or we can blame a mindless populace that elected them or we can blame the times in which we live which are fraught with godlessness.

However we feel about the cause of the current status of our nation, the one solution the God of Heaven and Earth and all that exists has to say in the matter is found in II Chronicles 7:14. That now familiar passage iterates: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

It behooves each of us who profess to love the Lord Jesus Christ to lift up this prayer, which originates in the Father’s heart, to His throne of mercy and grace daily. It behooves us to fast and pray in the behalf of this land that was laid at His feet at its inception—that godly men shall rise up to rule here, that a godly population will treasure the freedom the founders built into our Constitution as well as the freedom Jesus purchased for us on the cross.

If our generation allows the current tide of lawlessness and godlessness to be sustained, the next generation will not know the freedom our Founding Fathers counted dear enough to mutually pledge their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor,” in order to attain its establishment.

May we not be so foolish as to grovel in the pit of bondage when the lofty mountain of freedom is our heritage.