Even on vacation, as always, I’m up and at it. Soon, the rest of the Thoma family will awaken, and then we’ll be off to Zion Lutheran Church in Winter Garden. The service is at 9:00 AM if you’re in the area and interested.
We never miss worship. Not even on vacation. Why would we? God doesn’t take vacations from us.
Until it’s time, I’m sitting in my usual early-morning writing space, a swimming pool just beyond the wall to my right. What to write about? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that we’re already about halfway through the summer. Thankfully, that realization comes to mind at a relatively impenetrable moment. What I mean is that, first, I’m typing this from what is, more or less, my happy place: Florida. And second, we just arrived here last night, so we have almost two full weeks of rest and relaxation ahead of us. Together, these two facts form a perfect moment for perspective—a kind of balance that vacations alone seem to offer.
In the early days of time away, there is an abundance of freedom. You look ahead and think, “We have so many days for anything and nothing. The time is wide open, and we can fill it however we’d like.” But then, something subtle happens a little past the halfway mark. It’s a quiet shift. Without warning, instead of looking toward a seemingly endless expanse, a countdown of sorts begins: “Only five days left. Now four. Now three.”
Maybe it isn’t this way for you, but it can be for me. And if I’m not careful, it can become almost like a thief. It steals my mind away from the present and into a kind of preemptive grief over what hasn’t even ended yet. And so, I do my best to savor rather than tally. If anything, my family makes that easy to do. They’re so much fun to be around, and the blessing is that when the vacation ends, we end it together. When we go home, we go back home together to just be what we were before we left—and for me, that’s enough.
There’s a well-worn line in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” that takes a straight aim at the tallying urge I described before. For me, it translates into pondering what’s left of anything and instead dwelling in the enchantment of right now. As only Longfellow could scribble, he sets before us, “Then followed that beautiful season… Summer… Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape lay as if newly created in all the freshness of childhood.”
I’m 52 years old. Childhood seems so far away. And yet, I get what he means. He wraps his words around something that doesn’t seem to fade with age. He describes a kind of freshness that isn’t necessarily about being young, but about being present in something that has been given.
I don’t want to get too esoteric this morning. And yet, vacation time certainly does provide access to an entirely different and yet unrestricted level of thinking for me. I just feel good, more thoughtful. It’s the one time during the year when I can better see the things I already know. For example, as a Christian, I already know that life is far more than droning schedules. But on vacation, I can actually see it. It isn’t just symmetry on a calendar. It’s not something mathematical. Instead, life is a great big grace-filled opportunity that doesn’t need to spend any of its time worried about its end.
By faith, there is no end, and so, this is good, and it’s enough, whatever it is.
Maybe that makes sense to you, and you agree. Maybe it doesn’t, and you don’t. Well, whatever. For me, it’s enough. And either way, God’s Word agrees with me. Or better said, I agree with God’s Word.
If and when I find myself worrying about life’s fast-fleeting days, my Lord is there to remind me, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). These words are not intended as motivational poster material. They’re powerful. By the Holy Spirit’s power, they instill what they commend, which is a divine permission to stop counting what’s left of anything and simply receive what is. They’re words that stir believers to begin each day ready to hum along with the Psalmist, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). The Psalm-writer didn’t say “was made” or “will be made.” He said, “This is the day.” This one. For me, it’s the one that begins with this little eNews message, a cup of tolerable coffee, and eventually a trip with my still-sleeping family to church at Zion Lutheran Church in Winter Garden, Florida. I don’t know what comes after that. Although it’s more than possible it’ll involve laughter echoing from the pool after eating a meal that makes it far too hard for me to swim.
Whatever the family and I decide to do, Lamentations 3:22–23 will rise and shine over all of it, even more brightly than the Florida sun. We’ll soak up the time remembering that the “steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
I suppose I’ll end with that. Indeed, life is not dwindling by the day. Not with Jesus. By faith, I know that even if I only have a few more days of vacation or a few more days of mortal life, it’ll be perfectly enough.
It might be old news, but one of my all-time favorite films, Jaws, celebrated its 50th anniversary this past June—the 20th, to be precise. Of course, the Thoma family observed the special day by ordering a pizza and watching it.
What brings this to mind right now is that I just learned that a documentary about the making of the film was released on July 11. I haven’t watched it yet, but I plan to. I’m sure it’ll bring back memories.
I remember the first time I saw the film. I wasn’t very old, maybe seven or eight. My brother and I watched it on a Betamax player my dad borrowed from a friend at work. At least, I think that was the context. I can’t say for sure. Either way, I loved the movie, and I dare say it played a huge part in my fascination with horror films. Although Jaws wasn’t really a horror film. It was more of an adventure-like thriller with horror elements. It was slow-building and suspenseful. But its charm was that it was grounded in something that could happen.
Ask my family, and they’ll tell you there isn’t much that I fear. Scary movies never bothered me. I’m rarely startled when surprised. I was never afraid of the dark as a kid. I never felt the urge to rush up the basement steps after turning out the light. But I can admit, I’m no fan of sharks. I have my reasons. And as such, I can admit, even when I was a 20-something lifeguard working at a freshwater lake in the summer, I thought about what might be lurking beneath the surface every time I went for a dip.
Harrison and I were listening to movie soundtracks on Spotify several weeks back. Jennifer and the girls walked in just as I played the soundtrack from Jaws. Right away, they all knew the iconic two-note motif, even without me telling them. Go swimming in a pool, and at some point along the way, it’s the resident father’s job to dip lower, his mouth just above the rippling surface, and begin, “Dun-dunt… dun-dunt… dun-dunt-dun-dunt-dun-dunt…” When that happens, no matter how old the children are, there’s a crazed splashing as they dash for the pool’s edge.
I finished the fantasy-fiction book I was writing and sent it off to the publisher. I’m glad to say it has been accepted for publication. Two more are expected. Now I’m five chapters into something completely different—a thriller. For the record, I’m loving every minute of its creation. Stepping beyond myself for a moment to observe the writing process, I think movies like Jaws did more than just spark my interest in all things scary. I believe it played a role in introducing me to the power of storytelling, particularly in terms of tension and pacing. It taught me that what you don’t see is often more frightening than what you do. Spielberg’s restraint—the decision to show the shark sparingly—was brilliant. It left space for the mind to fill in the fear.
It’s hard to believe it’s been fifty years. But then again, some stories never truly grow old. They just circle beneath the surface, waiting to rise again.
I read a reply to one of my Facebook posts this morning. It more or less supported the point in a cultural sense. Ultimately, I deleted the reply, if only because it was crass and attacking. Essentially, the person believed that LGBTQ issues should be seen as entirely normal and, therefore, acceptable. His premise was that LGBTQ relationships have existed as long as heterosexual relationships. So, in other words, longevity equals legitimacy.
For the record, that’s just silly.
Age alone doesn’t validate something. Throughout history, plenty of things have been long accepted, yet we now easily recognize them as absurd. The Spartan culture, for many centuries, considered it honorable to dispose of newborns with birth defects by throwing them from cliffs. Although I wouldn’t put it past Michigan’s current leadership to write the practice into the state’s constitution. We already have an amendment that allows abortion up to birth, and in some instances, afterward.
But before I stray from my original thought, my point is that the age of a thing, or even its level of acceptability in cultures throughout history, says nothing about its morality or truth. Ultimately, sin has been around since Eden. Pride, murder, greed, envy, idolatry—all of these things have endured. Not one of them is new. And all along the way, God’s Word has spoken clearly against them. Just because something has endured doesn’t mean it’s good or right.
Indeed, the enemy of God’s truth has always worked subtly, patiently, and yes, sometimes through the slow-building suspense of cultural conditioning—until finally, it’s time once again for the fin to break the surface and for the attack to come.
By the way, that Facebook reply itself was a tired example of the premise. The desire to justify one’s sin is an ever-lurking predator. It waits patiently just below the surface of the conscience, always ready to offer an excuse, always prepared to snap with, “This is who you are,” rather than, “This is what Christ came to redeem.”
It’s no coincidence that the Bible often describes devilish things in predatory terms. Sin crouches at the door (Genesis 4:7). The devil prowls like a lion (1 Peter 5:8). These things are purposely framed as ensnaring and deceiving. The cultural arguments we hear today try to steer away from these descriptions. But in the end, they’re little more than recycled lies with polished packaging—that is, for the lifeguard who’s paying attention. They see the appeal to emotion or history. They recognize the labeling of objectively true things as “fascism” and “bigoted,” and they see the same old fin circling the swimmers.
I suppose my concern these days is that the Church, the appointed lifeguard, is too often lulled by the quiet of the water. Too many in our ranks are too often asleep in the chair, thinking all is well. Perhaps worse, among those who know the dangers, many are afraid to swim out into the crimsoned waters to help. We know we, too, could be attacked, and that the effort to help might have an irreversible cost to our reputation, our comfort, our families, and so much more. In other words, not unlike the tension that Jaws portrayed so well, there’s a fear of what you don’t see but know could happen.
But here’s the thing. Christians are not called to fear, but to faithfulness. Our calling is not to retreat. We’re not to remain on the beach. We are sent into the waters knowing full well what stirs beneath. I’d say this is true because we’ve already been carried into and through the better waters of Holy Baptism, which is a washing that doesn’t remove fear, but transforms it. Our LCMS President, Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, once described this kind of Christian courage in a way that I’ve never forgotten. He said something about how Christian courage is nothing less than fear that’s been baptized.
He was right in so many ways.
Grafted into Christ, fear becomes something altogether different (John 15:4-5; Romans 11:17). It doesn’t necessarily vanish. Instead, it bows. It gets reordered by the Gospel, and as a result, it no longer rules the heart (Philippians 4:7; Colossians 3:15). That’s because it has been fixed to Jesus. Indeed, “we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4-5). This is to say, we are joined to the One who has already gone into and through the depths of darkness and emerged alive again (Revelation 1:17-18).
That said, we’re not here to tread water or stay dry on the shore. We’re here to swim, and sometimes that means swimming right into the blood-stained mess. We do this not because we’re immune to fear. We’re no fools. We know so many unseen and fearful things are gliding quietly beneath us (Ephesians 6:12). This is especially true in the waters of culture. But the point is that for Christians, fear is not preventative. We know that the worst that could ever happen in any situation—death—has no dominion (Romans 6:9; 1 Corinthians 15:54-57).
Two of the little girls washed away in the floodwaters were sisters. Blair and Brooke Harber were their names. Blair was 13 years old. Brooke was 11. When they found their lifeless bodies fifteen miles downstream, they were still holding hands.
When Jennifer shared this with me last night, I thought this couldn’t possibly be true. Then I looked it up. It seems it is true. The New York Post reported it. So did the Houston Chronicle and the Associated Press.
But here’s the thing. I have two daughters. If there’s one thing I know for sure about them, had they been swept away in a similar tragedy, we’d have discovered them in a similar embrace.
Madeline and Evelyn are as different as night and day. One loves to fly. The other could spend the whole day fishing. One prefers all things scary. The other is most comfortable in cowboy boots. One slips into unfamiliar scenes with quiet grace. The other makes sure everyone in the room knows where she stands on pretty much everything. But for as different as they are, the love they have for Christ, their family, and each other has never needed them to be alike. It has only needed them to be near.
So, while Jen was reading to me about those two girls, I’ll admit I got a little choked up. Who wouldn’t? Although I didn’t let her see it. She was already struggling to read the article, and a husband needs to be sturdy at these times and in these ways. Still, it was hard to hear, not just for the sorrow of it, but for the unseen truth, something familiar to me, that stirred in the swirling muck of a dreadful situation. The kind of love those girls had, I see it in my own daughters. That kind of final grasp isn’t made in a moment. It’s made over the years through late-night whispers, shared stories, and tearful apologies. It’s born from a wordless understanding between two sisters who know each other sometimes better than they know themselves. It is a love that holds on.
I know Madeline and Evelyn would have held on, too. And I believe they still will, no matter how far the current of life carries them. Because love like that just doesn’t let go. Even better, they have a Savior who won’t let go of them. And together, as sisters, they know it. They know even if the world gives way beneath them, He is there. By faith, they know, just as the seemingly simple and yet incredibly profound song goes, “Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me.”
The news out of Mystic, Texas, was shocking. The flash floods brought more than water. They brought terrible sadness. I just checked. As of only a few hours ago, forty-three people are dead. Fifteen of them are children. The Associated Press article I was reading reported that “27 girls from Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian camp for girls in Hunt, Texas, still were unaccounted for about 36 hours after the flood.”
There’s something especially jarring about the death of children. It’s a primal ache. The little ones among us are meant to be protected. I can only imagine how helpless the parents of those children are feeling right now. They sent them to camp, expecting them to return. But in the middle of the night, a cabin of eight-year-olds was swept away.
Tragedies like this awaken something deep in us. They are reminders that being an adult is, in part, about standing guard. Even when, as children, we resisted the watchfulness, something changed the moment we became parents ourselves. We began to understand. We realized that protecting children is one of the most fundamental callings written into the human frame.
At least, you’d think it was. It seems more and more that this essential truth has been blurred by design. It seems that deliberate choices are being made by adults that not only fail to protect children but actually drop them right into the rising ideological deluge, insisting it’s for their good, even as the current pulls them under.
A long-time friend of mine, Martha, stopped by my office this past Wednesday while in town on business. It was good to see her. We spent a little over an hour catching up.
When it comes to what’s going on in the world, she’s a lot like me. She wonders how things got so backward. At one point along the way, we touched briefly on the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the Tennessee law. Essentially, the law bans transgender hormone treatments and surgeries for minors. I was glad for the 6-3 decision. Martha was, too. At its core, the law is a step toward protecting children from irreversible harm.
I mentioned to her in passing that Michigan has similar legislative efforts in motion. For example, House Bill 4190 would prohibit doctors from prescribing hormones or puberty blockers to minors. It also bans gender reassignment surgery on kids. My friend, Jason Woolford, is the one behind this worthwhile piece. He is an example of someone willing to step into the gap and defend children where others hesitate. I don’t think I mentioned the like-minded Senate bills that would criminalize healthcare providers while giving parents the right to sue for damages. One is Senate Bill 291.
These are all noble efforts, for sure. Still, I told Martha that someone should at least consider drafting a bill identical to Tennessee’s law. Make it word for word. I realize that with Governor Gretchen Whitmer at the helm and the Democrats controlling the State Senate, it’s unlikely that anything will get through and become law. Nevertheless, a shift in power could be on the very near horizon. And so, push the identical bill. Tennessee’s law has already been stress-tested in the nation’s highest court.
I’m sure not everyone agrees with this approach. Some might argue that simply copying another state’s legislation overlooks the subtleties of Michigan’s political landscape. I wonder if that’s part of the problem. Perhaps we’ve become too concerned with tailoring bills to conciliate rather than to confront. In fact, the longer I stand at the intersection of Church and State, the more convinced I become that we’re overcomplicating things. Too often, bills are laced with endless nuances, providing this exception and that concession, all in hopes of pleasing as many as possible, and yet resulting in the legislation being neutered before it even reaches the Governor’s desk. The more I see this, the more I question whether the bill drafters truly grasp the dangers posed by the ideologies they’re supposedly trying to address.
Chiseling away at devilish ideologies is virtuous, but only insofar as truth continues to meet squarely against anti-truth. To do this requires both unwavering clarity and legislative precision. When it comes to radical gender ideologies in particular, anything else risks the grotesqueness embedding itself deeper into our schools, our medical systems, our laws, and our souls.
Now, I should probably steer preemptively into two critiques I expect to receive from what I’ve just written.
First, I have plenty of friends in government who’ll step from my seemingly simple-mindedness, calling me naïve—that I don’t know how things work in Lansing, or, bigger still, Washington, D.C. I expect that assessment. And to some extent, they’d be right. However, I would respond by saying that if political realism leads to bills that ban surgery but affirm the worldview behind it, even if only a little, then perhaps a little naïveté is exactly what’s needed.
That said, rest assured, I’m not ignorant of the legislative process. I am aware that the political world involves negotiation, committees, amendments, and such. Rest assured also that I’m not necessarily an absolutist. Like Jesus during His earthly ministry, I’m more of an incrementalist. Indeed, divine absolutism will eventually play out, and everyone everywhere will know when it does (Philippians 2:10–11). On that day, “He will judge the nations with justice and the peoples with equity” (Psalm 98:9). Meanwhile, the Lord didn’t reach into this world, taking upon Himself human flesh, and instantly demanding complete comprehension from those He encountered (John 1:9-14). He preached, He taught, and He walked with people (Luke 24:27; Matthew 4:23; John 3:2). He led them step by step into His identity and truth—patiently, deliberately, and with perfect clarity (Mark 4:33–34; John 16:12–13).
But take note: He did this, never compromising truth’s substance for the sake of palatability (John 6:60–66).
That’s the balance I prefer. I want to do everything I can to move the ball down the field, avoiding any plays that risk giving up ground. In other words, incrementalism must never become appeasement. I’ve seen how the slow erosion of truth so often hides behind the phrase “what’s politically possible.” Refusing to give ground is the only respectable posture.
But that means we must first understand and then acknowledge just how backward things are. Until we do, we’ll remain a society that embraces madness, the kind that creates bills that still allow exceptions in some instances for surgically mutilating its citizens under the banner of compassion.
The second thing I should probably steer into is likely to come from a now former friend (unfortunately) who I can hear saying something like, “Look, no one wants to see kids suffer. But we need to get the government out of this altogether. We need to let families and doctors make these deeply personal decisions without government interference.”
And that, right there, is a big part of the problem.
Even apart from Christianity’s boundaries, personal liberty has never equated to moral neutrality. Liberty understands that truth exists and that citizens must be free to seek, speak, and live according to that truth without fear of coercion or punishment. But liberty untethered from truth is no longer liberty—it’s radical individualism. When radical individualism invokes the Declaration of Independence’s “pursuit of happiness” phrase to justify the mutilation of children, then freedom has become a twisted version of itself. We end up using our nation’s founding documents, not in pursuit of truth, but as permission-granting sources for redefining it. And again, it’s the children who pay the highest price for such redefinitions. They are both the battlefield and the collateral.
“But that’s more or less a spiritual argument, Pastor Thoma.”
In a sense, yes. But so is the counterargument. Right now, the prevailing narrative in our world says that someone can be “born in the wrong body.” Having spent enough time around Dr. James Lindsay, I’ve realized this is a deeply Gnostic concept—one that severs the soul from the body and declares the physical form irrelevant or even hostile to the true self.
The Christian faith insists otherwise. Body and soul are not at war but in union, created by God in perfect harmony (Genesis 2:7). Our Lord took on flesh, not as a costume to be shed, but as the very substance of our redemption (John 1:14). Christ’s incarnation affirms the goodness of the human body—male and female—as God designed it (Genesis 1:27). To mutilate that body in the name of self-actualization is not compassionate liberation. It’s a spiritual act, and a desecrating one at that (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). To slice away organs or pump anyone, child or adult (because age does not sanctify the level of one’s error), with cross-sex hormones in pursuit of an impossible transformation is not compassion or the pursuit of happiness. It is bodily harm, sanctified by pseudo-Gnostic jargon cloaking a lie, one that is easily detected in Natural Law (Romans 1:25).
Ultimately, I hope that future generations will look back on this time in America as a dark age. I hope everything that’s happening relative to so-called “gender-affirming care” will be remembered with the same horror as lobotomies. Whether such somber reflection will ever occur, I don’t know. What I do know is that a generation of legislators did not defeat slavery with bills that allowed “grandfather” exceptions.
There’s one more critique I should probably address before wrapping up, mainly since much of this has focused on gender dysphoria.
Per usual, I will be accused of hatred for what I’ve written. I will be told that I just don’t understand and that I am invalidating someone’s identity. Someone may even wield dissenting Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s argument that my position is nothing short of advocacy for suffering.
To that, I suppose I might say, “Yes, I am advocating for suffering. Just not the kind you think.”
I’m advocating for what we Lutherans call the “Theology of the Cross,” a path marked by humility, struggle, and self-denial. It’s what Jesus meant by saying, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). The one following Jesus is less interested in worldly accommodation, but instead, is inclined to suffer all things, even suffering against internal desires, rather than be separated from Him and His redemptive work on the cross. All this stands in stark contrast to the world’s “Theology of Glory,” which seeks affirmation and comfort at any cost.
Every human being is born with backward desires. That’s the reality of sin. Taking up the cross in life’s combat, some fight against lust. Others wage war against drinking. Others fight dysphoric tendencies. Right now, we live in a culture more inclined to affirm and celebrate these disorders rather than restrain them. Still, Christ bids us to follow Him, not the “self.” It is not dangerous or unloving to say this. It is, however, unloving to affirm a lie, and it’s risky to give it room.
In the end, I expect to be called hateful for my positions. However, in every aspect of life, the courage to suffer for the sake of truth is the only way forward. It’s the best levee for holding back the water. That’s because its strength lies in a divine kind of love that brings truth, even when it costs something. Look to Jesus on the cross and see for yourself. There, love and truth are not in conflict but are inseparably joined—and in the most wonderfully protective way.
I wasn’t going to write anything this morning relative to the Fourth of July celebration. I intended to wake up, get some coffee, and just relax.
However, just a few minutes ago, I read an online piece about what actually went into planning and executing particular liberty-securing special military operations in early American history. It was dangerous. It was the embodiment of diligence. It was the deliberate offering of one’s own life for the sake of others. It was early mornings without the certainty of evening rest. It was calculated suffering, guided by conviction, and sustained by the hope that a freer nation might actually be built—brick by brick, battle by battle, prayer by prayer.
In other words, for our Founding Fathers, it was anything but waking up, drinking coffee, and relaxing.
Maybe we should set aside our barbecues and eat turkey instead. It sure feels a little like the Fourth of July could be interchangeable with Thanksgiving Day. We could sing our anthems, light our fireworks, and gather around tables not because we have earned this freedom, but because God has so graciously granted it, and for that, we are incredibly thankful.
The Apostle Paul wrote, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). He wasn’t talking about national liberty. He was talking about freedom in Jesus. This is freedom from sin, death, and Satan. Still, where Christian liberty exists, there is true liberty in every sense of the word. It makes sense, then, that we would give thanks for the national freedom to gather and to worship our Lord without fear.
This is, in fact, a place where Church and State meet—not by confusion of their roles, but by acknowledgment that God rules over both. By His rule, we have the greatest freedom secured by a Savior, and another freedom He has so graciously given, made sure by patriots.
That carries me to something else.
Liberty rightly understood is not license. It is a gift to be stewarded, not an idol to be polished. God’s Word reminds us: “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16). In other words, liberty is not measured by the expanse of its seemingly endless boundaries. A person is not truly free if freedom means indulging in that which destroys. You are not living in liberty if you believe a person is free to murder an unborn child or redefine human sexuality. Genuine liberty pursues what is good, right, and true.
So, I guess what I’m saying this morning is that I’m thankful for liberty and the price paid for it, both on the cross and the mortal trenches. And yet, looking up from the trenches, I’m thankful for the preservation of this nation only insofar as she continues to understand liberty rightly, that she repents where needed, and that she pursues righteousness where lacking.
Yesterday, I was on a national phone call with Dr. Ben Carson. He asked me to speak. Of course, I agreed. One thing I said was that, in a sense, any nation with Christians living in it is blessed. That’s because they know what to pray for. Not only that, but they can hold the line on truth (1 Corinthians 16:13), and they can speak that truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). Their love for Christ always supersedes their love of country, and in that sense, they serve as purifying elements, whether they realize it or not.
Now, I don’t mean these things in a dominionist way—as if to say only Christians should run the government. What I mean is that when Christians live in faithfulness to Christ and therefore live faithfully according to their vocations, loving their neighbor and fearing God, the nation is naturally enriched, even when it doesn’t know why. Christians truly are any nation’s salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16).
I suppose I’ll close with that.
Remember that as Christians, we are dual citizens. While we walk the soil of this great republic, we belong to a Kingdom not of this world (John 18:36). And yet, when considering America by comparison to so many other nations, we are bound to be thankful for both. In such thankfulness, keep the proper perspective. When you see the fireworks booming, remember the thunderous response of the dark sky and cracking rocks at the Lord’s crucifixion. He won your truest freedom there. When you see the fireworks flashing, remember that His divine light has shattered the darkness. When you see the flag waving, remember that the banner of Christ’s cross is forever raised over every nation, tribe, and tongue. And by the power of the Holy Spirit alive in you by the Gospel, you go forth in service to Him with a bit of extraordinary insight. You know, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).
Cruciform Stuff 