Are We The Land of the Free?

Hope everyone is planning a nice Fourth of July! We will be having another cottage prayer meeting tonight and this time it is at our house. I read something this week that really made me think and I would like to share those thoughts with you.

Usually on the Fourth we focus on our freedom and invariably you hear prayers of thankfulness for our freedom to worship here in the United States. As Christians we have at times almost been guilty of smugness, assuming that we would always have that privilege. Persecution was reserved for those 'other' places far removed from our daily life. We might say a prayer or drop money in a missions offering but when you got right down to it, we were untouchable. After all, wasn't our country founded on Christian principles? We have the Constitution on our side!

Then the lawsuits began. Atheists were concerned that their children were being forced to suffer through a prayer at school. So we had to remove that. But that is just separation of church and state you say. It keeps teachers from forcing their beliefs on the students. We are the land of the free!

Yet it did nothing to protect students from teachers forcing their unbelief upon them.

Then the question of school related functions was raised . Slowly that was filtered out, too. These days it is a rare thing to hear a simple prayer at a high school football game. How dare we force a non-believer to sit through a prayer for these young players to exercise good sportsmanlike behavior and be granted protection from physical harm?

The claim is that public prayer damages the tender psyche and infringes upon the rights of the Atheist. It didn't matter if they were not forced to bow their heads. It didn't matter that it was just words being uttered unless you joined your heart with those words. It didn't matter that deciding it was their right to not hear God's name mentioned at all was an infringement upon the Christian's right to pray.

It was also a request for God to remove His presence. It was an open invitation for the enemy to come in. And come in he did, with a vengeance.

Some would say that is an overstatement of the facts. We are the land of the free!!

It's a slippery slope.

Recently a bill was passed that limited what pastors could preach from the Bible. But that is just to discourage hate crimes, you say. It would never extend to anything else. We are the land of the free!

The door has been opened to control the pulpits of America.

Now it seems that in-home Bible studies are under scrutiny. Oh, that's just about parking you say. We are the land of the free!!

But the line of questioning was about the worship that took place rather than where people parked. The couple received a notice to stop religious assembly. They received no parking citations.

Many people squander the chance to share the Gospel because they are afraid to speak out. They are shy or afraid of fumbling or unsure about scripture. But, I would like to suggest that if this is you, that you will allow the Holy Spirit to guide you as you speak. So what if you trip over your words or you have to admit you are not a Bible scholar? The point is to share what Jesus has done for you. To be frank, if you can't come up with anything, maybe it is because He hasn't. Maybe you don't have the salvation you think you have. Maybe you don't have the relationship you think you have. Because if you do, you have a testimony to share, a story to tell! We must stop taking it for granted that we will always have that right. We must stop assuming that there will be another chance when we will 'feel better prepared' to be a witness for Christ.

Persecution is not coming. It is here.

Christians will be forced to make difficult choices.

Are we the home of the brave?

Now, more than ever, we must cling to Christ and allow Him to shine through us. Have you noticed in the Scriptures that the spouse who is married to an unbeliever is told to win them without a word? The day is coming when that is the only evangelism tool we will have left. The family of God is being silenced, little by little, bit by bit.

Right now, we still have a voice. How long before it is silenced completely?