Early in the morning, before the sun comes up, I sit in the living room and watch the black sky turn to midnight blue. Coffee one becomes coffee two. The gears start turning. The lungs start breathing. And I go, as the Bible says, from glory to glory. It's a funny little picture, but it's true of the Christian life. There are valleys and furnaces and trials that sanctify us, but don't get distracted by the hard parts. We're going from knowing the Lord, to knowing Him more, to one day seeing Him face to face. It only gets better.
Here's the verse that started my heart racing this week: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). When God is moving, He is freeing people from bondage. And most of the time, He does that freeing through people. That's the whole thing. That's you.
Doers, Not Just Hearers
If you've read the Bible at all, you already know what it asks of you. Don't be a hearer only, but a doer. Everybody nods at that. So are we supposed to just know the Bible, or live it? Live it. Jesus said what you hear in secret you shout from the rooftops. What you believe privately, you make known publicly. And in Matthew He said, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).
So put those two together. Make known publicly what you believe privately, and use your life to actively impact wherever you live. Well, what happens if you actually do that? Let me rewind about two hundred and fifty years and show you a group of men who did exactly that.
A Nation Built on the Word
God raises up nations, and when He's done, He pulls them down. Daniel said it plainly: "He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings" (Daniel 2:21). And Daniel himself was a man taken captive to a place he didn't want to be, who refused to cave on his identity in God. Because he stayed faithful, God used that one man to influence three generations of rulers.
There's no doubt the living God raised up the United States of America. Benjamin Franklin, of all people, stood in the Constitutional Convention and said if a sparrow can't fall to the ground without God's notice, is it possible an empire could rise without His aid? He quoted Psalm 127:1 straight out: "Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it." Fifty-one of the fifty-five men at that Convention were followers of Christ. Two of them went on to launch the American Bible Society because they believed the Bible would change lives and change the direction of a nation.
Look at the branches of government. Judicial, legislative, executive. Where did that come from? Isaiah 33:22: "For the Lord is our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us." God can hold all three perfectly because He's holy. Men are messed up, so they broke it into three for checks and balances. But they modeled it after His Word.
Now hear me clearly. We are not equating America with the kingdom of God or the Constitution with Scripture. One day God will be done with America, and I pray it's not on our watch. But we live here, we steward here, and we shine a light here because we know where we're going. And here's the sobering part: the reality is that if we become less Christian, we become less American. Move the foundation, and the house ceases to stand. Are we not watching people try to move it?
What Real Freedom Actually Is
You've probably been sold a lie that freedom means doing whatever you want. That's not true, and you know it isn't. If I hate you, am I free to shoot you? No. If I like your house, can I change the locks and take it? No. Nobody actually believes in absolute freedom. Real freedom is the freedom to do what is right. And someone has to decide what's right. That's why you want to live in a nation built on Christian principles, even if you're not a Christian yet. Go try protesting in another country and see how it goes.
Jesus is the ultimate Liberator. "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Notice it doesn't say He finds you in your freedom. It's a process of breaking you out of the prison of your sin and the chains of your bondage. Your friend says, "I'm free, I can drink whenever I want." But can you not drink? You're free from your temper? Then why can't you put it down? You're actually bound to your wants. True liberation is being able to not do what your flesh screams for. That's amazing freedom.
Paul told the Galatians, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1). Why would you creep back into the cell you were let out of?
Hold Up the Stick
God wants to move mountains and vanquish darkness with light, and most of the time He does it through ordinary people who show up. Moses set a nation free, but God didn't part the Red Sea until Moses held up a stick. Is God just asking you to hold up a stick? In your home, your marriage, your workplace? We tell God it won't work, as if we know the future better than He does. Gideon smashed a pot and held a torch. Esther found herself somewhere she never signed up for, and God said, "I didn't ask you to sign up, I gave it to you." Samson, David with a pebble, Nehemiah with his grief, Paul lowered down a wall in a basket in the middle of the night. Sometimes God calls us into things that are uncomfortable and even dangerous, and we still report for duty.
We had a little bird once. Found it half dead, feathers not even in yet. My kids named it Rocky. We fed it with a syringe, it grew up, and one day we took it back to set it free. And that bird flew, but it wouldn't go more than eight feet high. All its friends were up in the trees and Rocky just circled at eight feet. I cannot tell you how many Christians live like that. Filled with the Spirit, equipped with the Word, and living under an invisible ceiling. The founding fathers laid a foundation. That means you and I are putting up the walls. What are we building?
Have You Been Liberated?
Before you go celebrate this week, let me ask the real question. Have you been set free, or are you still bound to what you want and can't break loose? Paul told the Corinthians they had been drunkards, adulterers, violent, self-righteous. Then he wrote, "And such were some of you. But you were washed" (1 Corinthians 6:11). Past tense. When Jesus found you, He liberated you.
The gift of God is eternal life. If you confess Him as Lord, believe He died for your sins and rose from the dead, you shall be saved. You shall be washed clean. You shall be set free. All you have to do is receive it. And once He's set you free, guess what you become? A liberator. He commissions you to help set others free from whatever holds them. That's the whole mission.
Unless He tells you not to do something, He has already commissioned you to do it. So make sure you do it. Don't stall out at eight feet. Go higher.
This article is drawn from the message "Liberty, Liberators, & The Liberated" from 2 Corinthians 3:17 and John 8:36 in our series through the Gospel of Mark. Watch the full message on our YouTube channel.
