The Cross Stands For Freedom!
On a reasonably regular basis, friends will share with us articles showing acts that range from atheistic to downright anti-Christian or anti-religious. One day, one may show us an article about a plaque with the ten commandments taken down from a local courthouse. Another might show us an article where a judge overturned the state’s conservative majority decision to define marriage as one man and one woman. For the number of years exceeding well over a decade (or more), this steady stream of news bombards us from various angles and directions, and now, with Social Media, lousy news is constant.
Yet, for us, the only surprising fact about these articles is that our friends find them surprising enough to share with us to see our reaction.
The United States, along with the vast majority of countries in the free world (if not ALL of them), have walked away from God many moons ago. In all honestly, having spent a significant portion of our free time studying religious history, we struggle to find any point where a majority of any people followed the Lord with all of their hearts. Even Israel, God’s chosen people, regularly fell away from His plan. They persecuted most of God’s prophets and speakers! If God’s chosen people acted with hearts of stone, why does it surprise us that, centuries later, our modern countries act very much in the same way?
For Americans, some of the surprises come from the fact that in the past, faith in Christ, along with its various trappings, was, at the very least, accepted by the majority of people. Even the town drunk respected the position of spiritual leadership, a local pastor held in the community. People looked at icons of faith, such as copies of the Bible, Crosses, etc., with respect. Now, our society as a whole treats them with intolerance and disdain and is trying to remove history and eventually God.
However, make no mistake; if times have changed, it has been a surface issue only. Throughout the ages, people may have treated the icons and trapping of faith with more respect, but rarely, if ever, have they indeed followed God with all their hearts, as the Bible commands. Social pressures may have kept people in check in the past, but as times change, and those pressures with them, sincere intentions and desires bubble to the surface. However, careful study of history confirms that at no point in our past, as a collective whole, did we ever seek the Lord, our God, first and foremost.
However, it should not discourage us from doing so in our personal lives. History does show us numerous followers of Christ who dedicated themselves to His Call. Some paid the ultimate price, and their blood planted the seeds for generations of faithful.
Let us not put our faith in this world but, instead, put our faith in Christ! Let us not look to the world or the United States, but the Cross.
Chuck Colson once said,
“Where is the hope?
I meet millions of people that tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us.
Where is the hope?
The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws are pass, or what great things we do as a nation.
Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people.
That’s where our hope lies in this country.
And that’s where our hope lies in our life.”
Editor: JJ Michael Smith
God bless,
igotasavior
