Memorial Day is a special day in the our lives as Americans. Yes, most get a three day weekend. Yes, most get together with friends and family and have a cookout. Yes, many go and decorate the graves of loved ones who have gone before us. But ultimately Memorial Day is designed to be a day where we remember those who have paid the ultimate price so that we may have the freedom to have the previously mentioned blessings. We all know that freedom isn't free. It cost many lives for us to establish free and to maintain freedom. Author Greig Beck once wrote, " “Without sacrifice, there is no freedom. Without freedom, there is no life. God bless them who give their all for us.” There is so much truth in this statement...no only for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, but more importantly the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. The apostle Paul points out this reality, "you were once dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." (Ephesians 2:1-3) While we were born with freedoms as a citizen of America, we were also born captured and enslaved to sin. The sacrifice of brave men and women has preserved our liberties as citizens, but it is the sacrifice of Jesus who has bought our freedom to be the children of God and not of wrath. It is the greatest sacrifice by the Only Son of God who has given us the freedom to celebrate everyday with the reassurance that the spiritual freedom we have in Christ can never be stripped. It is the freedom we have in Christ that allows us to live a life of sacrifice as we put to death the old self with its desires of the flesh and walk in new life! This Memorial Day, remember the lives that were taken so that we might live in the land of liberty...but each and every day remember the life that was given that we might live eternally, free and forgiven as we are being conformed to the image of Christ!
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