It’s the 4th of July!  Time to celebrate freedom!  President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Four Freedoms Speech in 1941 said he wanted to see four freedoms:  freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.  In 1963 Martin Luther King wanted to see freedom from segregation.

By the late 1970s the Sexual Freedom movement had dwindled.

The 1980s brought freedom from public schooling as more and more families began home schooling their children.

Freedom for women came in the 1990s as they moved into greater positions of power and authority, becoming more willing to use their voice in speaking out for their rights.

And now… we are in the 21st century.  What freedoms will be challenged?  O Liberty…! is it well To leave the gates unguarded?
~Thomas Bailey Aldrich

What chains of bondage need to be broken to gain freedom?  “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

What voices and actions will be used to maintain or gain freedom?  “By definition, a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.” Adlai Stevenson

My favorite freedom of all:  Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.  Romans 8: 1-2

My weaknesses, my imperfections, my failure in doing what I don’t want to do, my inability to live a life free from sin just doesn’t matter for the Spirit who lives in me will be my witness that I am justified in my freedom by the blood of the Great Sacrifice of Jesus the Christ.  I am not condemned.  I am loved.  My goal for this Independence Day: the freedom from any preconceived ideas that keep me from loving as God loves.

What’s your goal?  Free from the bondage of drugs or alcohol?  Free from the destruction of gossip?  Free from financial worries?  Free to be you?  Free from underwire bras?  Now that is freedom.