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On our way home from leading a Broken Door Ministries retreat in a prison in Pennsylvania this past week, my wife and I had the opportunity to spend two days in Charlottesville, Virginia, where we visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. I expected to learn more about one of America’s most influential Founding Fathers, and I certainly did. But I also learned something about myself, and perhaps something important about all of us. Please click below to read more.

At Monticello, I encountered a contradiction that was difficult to ignore. Jefferson helped give the world some of its most powerful words about human freedom, yet his life did not always reflect the ideals he proclaimed.

Jefferson wrote, “all men are created equal,” and declared that we possess God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those words helped shape our nation and have inspired generations seeking freedom.

And yet, during his lifetime, Jefferson enslaved more than 600 human beings.

Slavery did not begin in America. It had existed across cultures and civilizations for thousands of years before the United States existed. That historical fact should never be confused with an excuse. No human being should ever be enslaved to another. Slavery was morally wrong then, and it is morally wrong now. It may have been legal in Jefferson’s time, but legality did not make it right.

Praise God, after a devastating Civil War, the United States abolished legal slavery within our borders through the Thirteenth Amendment. We did not invent slavery, but eventually, at enormous cost, our nation confronted it and ended it here.

Jefferson understood something of the contradiction. He spoke about liberty and condemned slavery at times yet continued to participate in and benefit from it. He also fathered six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. Their children were born into slavery, although the four who survived to adulthood eventually became free.

How could someone believe so strongly in freedom and still live with such contradiction?

Perhaps the better question is: how can we?

Jesus said, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.” (John 8:34)

The bondage of sin or addiction is certainly not the same as the physical enslavement of another human being. Yet Scripture uses the language of slavery to warn us how powerfully sin can diminish our freedom.

We can become bound by alcohol, drugs, pornography, gambling, food, money, possessions, our phones, anger, resentment, lust, pride, approval, success, or countless other things. Some chains grow from our choices, while others are connected to wounds, circumstances, or things done to us.

Saint Paul gives words to an experience many of us recognize: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” (Romans 7:19)

Something else made this lesson especially personal. Just a few days before visiting Monticello, my wife and I led a Broken Door Ministries retreat inside a women’s prison.

We encountered female inmates who were kind, caring, prayerful, helpful, and welcoming. Many demonstrated an exemplary faith that could inspire those of us on the outside. I do not know what most of them had done, but choices had been made serious enough to place them behind bars, some for life.

Those choices were not the entirety of who they were. They were still beloved children of God. We were blessed by spending time with them.

Neither should Jefferson’s failures erase every good thing he accomplished, nor should his accomplishments cause us to overlook the suffering caused by his choices.

Two things can be true about the same person.

We can be generous and selfish, faithful in some areas and sinful in others. We can know what is right and still choose what is wrong. We can sincerely love God while struggling with things that pull us away from Him. Recognizing that contradiction does not excuse our sin. It makes us honest enough to seek God’s mercy and change.

It would be easy for me to stand at Monticello and examine the contradictions in Thomas Jefferson. But I would miss the lesson entirely if I failed to examine my own. There are places in my life where I sincerely desire holiness and freedom, and other places where I still return to things I know can enslave me.

I think it is safe to say this is true for all of us.

Perhaps that is the real lesson I brought home from Monticello. The greatest danger is not that contradictions exist within us. The danger is becoming so comfortable with them that we stop seeing them.

So perhaps today we should ask ourselves one simple question:

Where in my life do I proclaim freedom while still living in chains?

Jesus does not reveal our chains simply to condemn us. He reveals them because He desires to free us. The question is whether we are willing to let Him.

Please listen to the song I wrote to go with today’s message. It is called UNDIVIDED HEART

Heavenly Father, open our eyes to the contradictions within our hearts. Help us recognize whatever keeps us from living in true freedom. Give us the honesty to face it, the grace to change, and the courage to follow wherever You lead. Free us from whatever keeps us from becoming the people You created us to be. Amen!

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Brian Pusateri

Brian is a Christian author and speaker. Brian, a lifelong Catholic, felt his life was forever changed when God spoke to his heart while attending an eight day silent Christian retreat in November of 2011. Soon after that retreat Brian founded 4th Day Letters and Broken Door Ministries. With the God inspired message of mercy and unconditional love that was placed on his heart during that retreat, Brian has been impacting others all over the country and around the world with his weekly letters, his talks, and his all day Christian retreats. In June of 2014, Brian’s life was again impacted in a very dramatic way when his eyesight suddenly became permanently impaired. The initial diagnosis was Multiple Scleroses (MS) but in December of 2019 the diagnosis was corrected to MOG antibody disease, a rare neurological disease. This health challenge has only served to draw Brian closer to God and bolster the importance of this timely yet ageless message.

Latest posts by Brian Pusateri (see all)

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