Posted by
peripheral on Thursday, July 03, 2008 6:37:10 AM
From My Perspective - - -
Lee Greenwood wrote the
stirring words to, “I’m Proud To Be An American”… Some of the lyrics express the following:
If tomorrow all the things
were gone I’d worked for all my life,
And I had to start again with
just my children and my wife.
I’d thank my lucky stars to be living here today,
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom
and they can’t take that away.
From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee,
across the plains of Texas,
from sea to shining sea,
From Detroit down to Houston and
New York to
LA,
Well, there’s pride in every American heart,
and it’s time to stand and say:
I’m proud to be an
American where at least I know I’m free.
And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land God bless the U.S.A
Freedom
isn’t free. It carries a price of commitment and sacrifice to preserve that
freedom and to pass it on to future generations intact. In
order that Freedom will become a reality, our nation needs to return to its
spiritual heritage and to the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There are two
basic considerations shared with us in Galatians 5, (1) vs. 1: “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, and (2) vs. 13: You, my
brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom
to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.” The price for
our freedom was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sin. The price of our
obligation in the freedom we enjoy is to serve one another in love.
A
nerve (perhaps conscience) was touched when words resonated across our land as Martin Luther King
gave his “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington,
DC on August 28th,
1963. The familiar words are - - -
And
so –
Let
freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let
freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let
freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let
freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let
freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But
not only that:
Let
freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let
freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let
freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From
every mountainside,
Let
freedom ring.
For the Church and the
individual professing Christian, there must be the commitment to make our
freedom in Christ be genuine and working at its best and finest - everywhere. We
can no longer live for ourselves and by our own set of rules. Submission to
authority is not easy but it is the responsible way to live and interact. No
one is ever really free in this world and lifetime – there are guidelines and
expectations ranging from civility on the secular plane to yieldedness on the
spiritual plane. The restrictions God places on our freedom are not
infringements on our liberty – they are protections against evil.
Think about this with me - -
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