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This past week marked the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the American experiment. Americans celebrated freedom with flags, fireworks, parades, cookouts, and gratitude. Readers in other countries may mark freedom differently, but all of us understand the longing to be free. Last night, while watching a program about the Revolutionary War, I found myself asking a harder question: what kind of freedom is worth marching into death for? I invite you to read more.

I thought about the courage it must have taken to stand shoulder to shoulder while musket fire was aimed directly at you. Those soldiers knew that when they marched onto the battlefield, there was a real possibility they would not march off it. They were walking straight into the probability of death.

I found myself wondering whether I would have had that kind of courage. Would I have stood firm? Would I have run? Would fear have taken over? It is easy to admire courage from a chair. It is harder to imagine hearing the command to move forward while death waits in front of you.

And yet, they marched because something mattered more than comfort, safety, and even life itself. They believed freedom was worth dying for. They believed the cause was bigger than themselves.

Christianity invites us into an even deeper understanding of freedom.

In the political world, freedom often means exercising our rights and pursuing our lives without unjust interference. That freedom is precious. Many have suffered and died to preserve it. But in the spiritual life, freedom is not simply doing whatever I want. In fact, doing whatever I want often becomes the very thing that enslaves me.

Jesus came to set us free, but his path to freedom is not the path the world advertises. The world says, “Follow your desires.” Jesus says, “Follow me.” The world says, “Do what makes you happy.” Jesus says, “Take up your cross.” The world says, “Your will be done.” Jesus teaches us to pray, “Thy will be done.”

That is where the battle begins.

Jesus never presented discipleship as a comfortable hobby. He did not say, “Follow me when it is convenient.” He said, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me.”

That is not soft language. That is battlefield language.

Jesus asks us to die before we die. He asks us to die to selfishness, pride, lust, greed, resentment, control, comfort, and sin. He asks us to stop living by the prayer of the fallen world: “My will be done.” He teaches us instead to pray, “Thy will be done.”

That may be the most difficult battle any of us will ever fight.

Most of us will never face musket fire on a battlefield. But every day, we face a different battle. We are asked to resist the old self, stop pacifying every appetite, stop feeding whatever false comfort keeps us from God, and love Christ more than our possessions, pleasures, ambitions, and even our closest human attachments.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” Those words can sound harsh. But he is not asking us to love others less. He is asking us to love him first, because only then can we love everyone else rightly.

The Christian life is not merely about being nicer, cleaner, or more respectable. It is about surrender. It is about dying to the self that keeps demanding to be king.

And that scares me because there are still parts of me that want comfort more than holiness, my way more than God’s way, and escape more than surrender.

But Jesus keeps calling: “Follow me.”

The soldier who marched into battle did not do so because he had no fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward because the cause is greater than the fear.

That is what discipleship requires. We march forward not because dying to self is easy, but because Christ is worth it. Freedom is worth it. Holiness is worth it. Love is worth it. Heaven is worth it.

The paradox of Christian freedom is this: I am not most free when I do whatever I want. I am most free when I am no longer ruled by whatever I want.

Sin promises freedom, but it delivers slavery. Selfishness promises life, but it leaves us empty. Christ alone offers the freedom our hearts were made for.

Maybe that is the question this anniversary places before us. We can celebrate freedom as citizens, but are we willing to pursue freedom as disciples? Are we willing to die to self so Christ can live in us?

Every day, we stand at the edge of a battlefield. The old self wants to survive. The new self in Christ wants to live. One of them must die.

The question is not whether we are afraid. Of course we are. The question is whether we believe the cause is worth the march.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of freedom. Thank you for those who sacrificed so much so that others could live free. Help me remember that true freedom is found not in doing my will, but in surrendering to yours. Give me the courage to follow your Son, to take up my cross, and to die to everything that keeps me from living fully in you. Amen.

Have you checked out my new book, Living Out the Lord’s Supper? To find out what readers everywhere are talking about, click here.

AMDG

AMDG is a Latin abbreviation for “Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,” which means “For the Greater Glory of God.”

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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.

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