Let Freedom Ring

As countries go, the United States of America has ascended higher than any nation ever has. It’s also quite unique. Americans, for better or worse, have a certain nature about them. We tend to have an intense love of loud and brash things: fast cars, rock ’n’ roll, fireworks. All things likely seen around the current Fourth of July celebrations.

While I personally have looked forward to all the parades, firework displays and cookouts accompanying it, there’s one thing that stands out which I cherish more than all of that.

Freedom.

Freedom is a large concept and takes on many forms. Here in the United States, it means the ability to say and think as we wish, when we wish and how we wish. On a more fundamental level, it means having a voice in one’s governance and not being bound under oppression and tyranny.

Freedom is an awesome virtue and one I am personally very thankful for. But what really is freedom, and why is it so near and dear to humanity across the globe?

According to singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson in his 1971 hit song “Me and Bobby McGee,” freedom is simply what we have when we have nothing left to lose. In one sense, when the tyranny of oppression became so great, the founding fathers of the United States were willing to risk their lives for freedom. They had nothing left to lose. When soldiers give their lives—all that they have—they quite literally have nothing left to lose.

While that sounds like a good definition, it has a major flaw. Freedom is too often confused with just being able to do what you want, when you want, for any reason you want. It lacks any sort of connection to responsibility. Genuine freedom, or true liberty, carries with it the idea of something bigger—being able to say and do as you choose, but with a certain sense of responsibility. It is the idea that we are free from something we might otherwise be beholden to—liberated not to just do as we please, but to do as we ought to.

As Christians, this concept should ring loudly through the freedom from sin that is offered through baptism into Jesus Christ.

The apostle Paul speaks boldly about this new life in Christ: “Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin” (Romans 6:6-7).

Regardless of where you live, you can be freed from sin through the blood and life of Jesus Christ. We are no longer indebted to the wages of sin, which are death, when we repent and accept His sacrifice (Romans 6:23).

This freedom carries with it a responsibility. In verse 12 of this same passage, we are reminded, “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.” Along with freedom from sin and death comes the requirement of obedience to God’s law.

Our aim here at Beyond Today is to help you in your journey to the Kingdom of God. We strive to do that by preaching the gospel or good news that Jesus shared, as well as by expounding on how God’s Word outlines how we are to live, both now and beyond today.

The freedoms citizens of the United States and various other countries enjoy are of great value. The freedom from sin and death that God provides through Jesus Christ is priceless.

Let this freedom ring.