Charlotte, NC — As I sit and reflect on July 4th this year, I have a wide range of motions. Of course, the patriotism surrounding this day is boiling up inside. I am proud to be an American and I am proud of our nation’s history of standing for freedom and greatness.
But there are others, like Time magazine, who want you to feel sorry for being so great. They want you to believe that this nation should never be what it is today because of the oppressive past that we have. That is where the excitement and patriotism start to fade.
I quickly realize that there are those among us (looking at you Democrats) who want to change our nation forever. They want to destroy the freedom that we have come to love and hold dear. They want to end our reign of greatness, freedom, and turn us into another puppet society like communist China.
It should never be a discussion about ending our freedoms at all. We should never be having discussions about giving everything to everyone through government because that was not what we were founded on. We were not founded on giving things away without hard work and sacrifice, but rather sacrificing everything to be free from oppressive rule.
I think that is where I differ from those on the radical left greatly. For those who have decided to identify as the woke radicals, I am not sure they have ever truly experienced freedom in any sense of the word. They have never understood that it is a gift to be free from a tyrannical government. They do not understand what it is like to be set free from being captive to something.
No, I’m not talking about slavery, racism, or any of the other factions of critical race theory that the radical left wants to talk about. I do not deny the existence of slavery and racism in the past, but they are not issues today and those alive today do not suffer at the hands of those events from the past. In fact, the fact that our nation is free gives all Americans the opportunity to achieve the so desired American dream.
So what is the difference between me and those on the radical left? Aside from their radical ideas about what they believe is freedom, I think it’s something that goes so much deeper.
As a Christian, I have experienced what it is like to be set free from something. It’s a personal experience that I have and there are many out there who have had a similar experience. When you have given your life to Jesus Christ as Savior, you truly understand what freedom is about.
Now there are some that may read this that believe I am saying that the only way you can be a real American is to be a Christian. That’s not the case at all. The only requirement to be a freedom-loving American is to be an American first and foremost. Then, you must have some understanding of what freedom is about.
That’s the difference between those who celebrate freedom and those who do not. Those who love freedom, come from a variety of backgrounds where they understand what freedom truly is and what it means. Perhaps they experienced it in foreign countries and immigrated here. Perhaps they experienced it was part of the military, seeing what the tyrannical governments of this world are capable of.
For those who do not love freedom, they do not have that personal tie to freedom at all. They have never had an experience that helps them understand what freedom is all about. For the Christian, we can certainly be patriotic and freedom-loving based on our personal experience in being set free from our sin. For others, they have experienced freedom through some other mechanism that helps them understand what freedom really is.
The only hope that our country has at this point is that we have a real experience with freedom once again. We seem to have lost sight of what tyranny really is. Sure, we all talk about communism, China, Russia, and other nations that are similar. But rather than opposing those views, it seems many in our nation want to embrace them and make America just like them.
Our nation needs an experience with real freedom again. We need to escape the grasp of the radical left who seeks to destroy and end our nation and the freedom that our founding fathers sought so desperately. I am convinced that there are enough Americans that truly understand freedom that we can turn around this nation before it is too late. But we have to start now.
