“And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written;

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the
captives
    and recovering of sight to the blind,
    to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

And He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And he began to say to them;

‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”
– Luke 4:16-21

This world is very broken…I’m sure there Is no dispute on that. We need liberation, freedom, from TONS of things. But may we rest with joyful hearts that we have freedom from the things most consuming…all unholy chains. This does not mean our lives here on earth will not contain things like fear, illness, loneliness, etc., it simply means we can have hope in our perfect future in heaven (which won’t contain any unholy things) AND we don’t have to let these things keep us captive in life. Our potential is no longer dependent on the length of the chain these things hold us by. Through the grace and mercy of the LORD, our Liberator, we have the ability to pursue greater things. We have the ability to pursue the holiness in which God calls us to, because of His great forgiveness and gift of freedom.

And so today, I want to give encouragement that this freedom from the things keeping us away from God is not the only freedom we get the privilege of celebrating.

Today we celebrate the freedom and birth of a new country, just as God freed us, allowing us to be made new, so has the United States of America been blessed and freed to start a new life in 1776.

Our country is nowhere near perfect, and neither are we, but may we rejoice in the good things it contains. God bless America as He has since it’s beginning.

July 4th, 2021