In the U.S.A. we just celebrated our Independence from tyranny, over taxation and religious control through monarchical rule. I shudder to think what our founding father’s would think of the current state of the nation with the tax rates and separation of Christianity from public life… but that’s another topic.

I’m writing to you today to tell you a story about my trip to Washington D.C. a couple of summer’s ago. Sara and I took our kids to tour the museums and see the monuments. It was a wonderful experience, I highly recommend it. Given that we’re both artists we were overwhelmed by the art. I have to say, the most memorable part of the trip was not the art, it was seeing Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. It’s a beautiful piece of property on the Potomac River.

As the guide led us through his home, we stopped in front of a room in which George held personal meetings. The guide told us that he would have met with people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and the list goes on.

Apparently he met often with Thomas Jefferson. I don’t remember if the guide actually said this or I imagined it but I remember thinking that they would have sat in this very room to discuss the founding of our nation and the principles recorded in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.

My imagination and my pastoral instincts began to take over. I could imagine conversations about freedom and personal liberty and how they were basic human values and rights. I could see them discussing how to structure the government of this new nation in such a way that the people were in charge and could vote to preserve their freedom. I could hear them discussing how difficult it would be to inspire a nation to not only value freedom but properly steward it and do what was necessary to protect it.

They had seen the effects of people’s dependencies on a governing body and they wanted to instill absolute independence in each and every American so this nation would live out its days as a free and sovereign nation.

I began to relate to these conversations as a pastor. As ministers we are to set people free from religion, the power of sin, the fear of death and carnal thinking. We are to encourage them to choose life and not be distracted by the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lust of other things. We are to inspire people to properly steward the freedom from the law of sin and death we have in Christ so we don’t enter back into the slavery of sin.

This is why I believe the USA was founded on Christian principles, no other god values freedom but the Father of Christ. No other god in all the religions of the planet give people free will.

God the father, maker of Heaven and earth, giver of Christ for the redemption of mankind desires that we live totally free. He created this earth and gave dominion to mankind and said subdue and prosper.

The Declaration of Independence reflects these principles:

“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.

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.”

They recognized the freedom and the authority given to mankind by God over creation and wanted to structure a nation in which we could live out those God given freedoms.

Unfortunately this foundation has been corrupted and God is systematically being removed from the fabric of the governing body and even culture. But we as children of God are still free and no one can take that away.

The whole earth is waiting for the sons of God to manifest their sonship and live in the authority we have through our joint-inheritance in Christ. God’s grace is powerful enough in our hearts to strengthen us to live free from sin, fear, doubt, shame and even death.

I pray our nation finds its way back to Christian principles and once again draws on the wisdom of God to govern and protect the blessings of liberty. I pray you rely on God’s grace and live free from the pitfalls of this world and properly steward your freedom in Christ.

I go into much more detail on these ideas in this message.

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Grace and peace to you,
Clint Byars

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