The First Taste of Freedom

On this day we celebrate a gift that each of us who were born in the United States received at birth – without any strings attached, without any effort on our own, without our choosing. We received the gift of living in a country where freedom is the foundation in which all other policies and laws stand.

Sometimes we try to take credit for inventing a country based on liberty and justice. We think our forefathers were the ingenious ones. When in fact, they were just modeling after the first Creator of freedom. The One who gave the first choice.

“But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:16-17

Here freedom was set into motion.

I often wonder why God gave Adam a choice. He was God. He could have easily not put him in the Garden with that tree. Or He could have just yanked that tree right up by its roots. But He didn’t.

Freedom was God’s gift of love.

He could have made Adam and Eve like puppets. Puppets that He controls and manipulates and makes love Him. But God knew that with true love there had to be freedom. Freedom to choose the one you’re loving.

God wanted to be chosen just like He chose us. 

We all know that with freedom comes a price tag. There was a price tag in the garden – one with a heavy debt. And there is still a price tag for freedom.

Today we will hear about and watch – and maybe even experience through our own family members – men and women who are all over this world paying the price tag for our freedom. The price tag for me to sit here on this sofa and write about anything I want to write about and publish it to the world. 

We will celebrate our forefathers who understood God’s love enough to know that building a country based on life and liberty was the only way to pursue happiness.

But we should also remember the first taste of freedom, there in the garden. And the price tag that it cost to live in that freedom.  

Then we should remember the Man who had the freedom to say no, but instead paid the debt, there on the Cross. The debt for our freedom, so that we not only could continue to experience it here, on this earth, but so we can know freedom forever. 

What are you and your family doing today to celebrate the Fourth of July? 

Wishing you and your family a blessed day to celebrate all of the freedoms He gave us!

Happy 4th of July!