this day i celebrate my freedom

freedom is a beautiful thing! but, it is absolutely never free! it comes at a great cost! the freedoms that i enjoy were purchased by someone! i am not the one who had to pay for them! but someone did! i honor you by living free and this day i celebrate my freedom!

undeserved, unearned freedom to live my life in any way that i desire; many people died to make that possible for me. i am free to choose where i go each day and what i do, who i talk to and what i say, how i make my money and where i spend it, how i raise my kids and where they go to school, who i worship and where i go to church. i am free! no one decides these things for me. it is the benefit i get for doing nothing except being born and living in a free country. a place that provides freedom for its citizens to be all that they can be. i did not fight for that freedom, but i am privileged and honored to partake of this freedom that so many brave soldiers did fight for. it brings honor to the men and women who paid such a high price to bring us freedom when we live in and experience what they fought so hard for.

it would be stupid if i did not partake of my freedoms just because i felt like i did not deserve them or pay anything for them. if i just sat and waited for someone to tell me what to do with every aspect of my life and never took my own initiative to explore my own desires. if i looked for someone else to tell me what to do with my life and how i should make that happen or who i should worship and why. it would be as if i were bound by invisible chains that i perceived were there but weren't. it would be as if all of the lives that were sacrificed for my freedom would have been done for no reason at all because i did not partake in them. kinda like saying, "thanks but no thanks, i will find my own freedom. i will pay for it myself thank you!" it would be that a great cost was paid for nothing!

it almost sounds rediculous to not partake of such freedom. but, yet in a different kind of way, i, sometimes, find this in my relationship with God.

undeserved, unearned freedom to live in Christ; Jesus died to make that possible for me. i am free from sin and all of its power in my life. i have free access to my Father. i am free to experience joy and peace and the perfect love that He has for me. i am free from the dictates of the Law and the condemnation that follows when i fail. i am free! it is the benefit that i get for doing nothing except being born again by my faith in the One who paid the price with His life to make this freedom possible for me by making me to live in union and communion with my Creator. i did not fight for this freedom, nor do i fight to continue to live in it, but i am privileged and honored to partake and live in the freedom that was bought and paid for me to have. it brings honor to the Lord when we experience and live in the freedom He paid such a high price for us to have.

to allow myself to feel as if i need to earn my postition in Christ, by unholding a certain standard of obedience or Law abiding, to not enter into the presence of God that is so freely open to me, to continue to see myself as a sinner who has no power to overcome the struggles in my life or to think that if i do enough good things then God will love me more is also living as if i were still bound by invisible chains that are no longer there. it would be as if all that Jesus sacrificed for me to have was done so in vain because i was not using the freedoms that He paid for me to have with His life. it would be that a great cost was paid for nothing!

freedom is a beautiful thing! but it is absolutely never free! it comes at a great cost! the freedom to experiece Life in Christ was purchased by Jesus Christ Himself! i did not nor could not have ever paid the price it took to bring such freedom! But Jesus did! i honor You by living free and this day i celebrate my freedom!