Have you ever stopped to think how blessed we are to live in a country where we have so many freedoms? Americans are among the freest of all people in the world.
Have you ever considered why that is?
We know that most of our Founders were Christians, and our country was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs.
When you examine the Declaration of Independence you see that God was the foundation of the freedoms they declared. The first paragraph reads:
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.
The next paragraph starts:
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.
And right before they sign, they write:
And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.
God, Creator, and Divine Providence are the words they used to define who gave them their freedom.
They also in this document define the role of government and the governed:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Constitution of the United States opens with the following:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
We live in the most blessed nation of the world because of our Founding Fathers’ belief in God, and God’s blessing on us.
Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
Acts 5:25-29
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to consider what would be lost if we removed God from our Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States. Our belief in God is paramount to our liberty. It is our protection from government.
Consider what Peter and the other apostles said, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” We need to be about spreading the gospel. God needs to be a visible part of our public life.