Joy
Jonathan Brickman

With freedom, comes joy. Do you have it?

When you buy a gift for yourself or someone else, do you know worry, or strength?

When you sit down to eat a meal, do you know guilt, or confidence?

On the first day of your work-week (if you work), do you have misery, or restfulness?

When you hear or read words which violate your most favorite thoughts, do you know anger, or peace?

I know that you have been told that your freedom and mine comes from men killing other men. But I tell you that the only "freedoms" that are available from killing, are not worth killing for. Land is not worth killing for. Money is not worth killing for. Toys are not worth killing for. Travel is not worth killing for. Drugs are not worth killing for. Nastier things are not worth killing for. Life is not worth killing for, because you cannot keep anyone from dying. Freedom is not worth killing for, because you can not set a person free of their slavery to sin by killing. And even another's pain is not worth killing for, because to do so, you violate a Command of the Son of God, who has commanded us to love all of our neighbors, without fail and without ceasing. There is nothing which overrides a commandment of the Son!

If you want a freedom that gives you joy everywhere and in all circumstances, from here to eternity, from the Empire State Building to the bottom of a hole in Manhattan to the inside of a prison, you cannot get it from helping people die, or helping people kill, or helping lawyers and their fellows make yet more laws which bind. You can get it only from Jesus the Messiah, who died that we might taste the true freedom, the freedom from all fear, from all guilt, from all worry, from all of the consequences of sin.

Talk to God, and ask Him about Jesus. But please do it soon. Things start to get much better, afterwards.