This I Do Declare in the Name of Freedom

Here are two simple thoughts for Independence weekend:

If there is no Creator, than we have no endowment of unalienable rights. We are adrift and subject to the whims of those who rise to power by whatever means available to them. We do have a Creator but woe to us on the day that those who reject Him cast aside civility, mercy, and restraint.

and

These are times for Christians who write to yield themselves to the power of the Holy Spirit and devote more time to prayer and to the study and obedience of God’s Word than to promotion and posts. When our words are empowered by God, each tweet, each post, each email, each update becomes a tool for building the Kingdom of God and a weapon against the darkness until He comes again.

Enjoy this weekend. Rest. Recreate. Recover. Regroup. Know that freedom is ours in Christ alone and our independence day from darkness occurred on a cross when America was still an idea in the mind of our God.

Enjoy a reread of these empowered words –

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

(you can read the rest at http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html)

Today I’ll take a nap in the hammock of the truth that the world spins at God’s command, not by my efforts. Selah. Be at peace this weekend. Know your freedom in Jesus Christ is written on the palm of His hands. Amen.