Freedom and the individual

July is the month we celebrate our Nation's independence. I thought about why we celebrate this. It is because a great nation was formed from the decision to separate from the oppressive rule of Great Britain. Some very brave and focused leaders of our nation choose to form their own government and fight to defend a themselves. The heavy hand of England weighed in on the population of this new province with taxes and regulations that limited people's ability to do a lot of things, like: provide for their families; obtain a job; worship and to build a united society the way they saw fit. If you study the early colonies and the early leaders of our country, they were God-fearing people with faith in Jesus. The freedom we have today was brought on by these very brave and valiant people who saw a vision of freedom and liberty. The freedom and liberty we enjoy today. The unfortuante thing about our liberty is that we need to separate ourselves from those who would limit that freedom and liberty with borders. We then enforce and defend those borders with our governmental systems.

You can see how cultures and governments form to create boundaries in Biblical times as well. These barriers are necessary to allow people to live the way they want. Some have stronger government systems, like Judea did and others have less restrictive laws, like Samaria. But what becomes very clear is that Jesus has genuine concern and love for Israel AND the Samaritans. He has these same feelings toward England and United States. He might have strong opposition about how the countries are run, but there is no disputing His love that has no borders.

So looking further into Chapter 4, Jesus continues his journey toward Galilee through Samaria. Look at John Chpt. 4 v. 5 to 9. Jesus asked the woman at the well, "Give me a drink". Now we know Jesus was a Jew and He was in Samaria. The cultural ways of a Jew precluded them from talking alone in public with a woman, let -alone a Samaritan woman. Here again Jesus shows he is less concerned about cultural regulations and more concerned about individuals. Even though He is hot, "wearied" and needs water He will transition the conversation at the well from culture and His dehydration to the woman's spiritual health.

As we can see Jesus is clearly more concerned about the individual. He is far less concerned about rules, traditions and image. We can be confident that no matter what country we are from, what traditional background we have, He loves us and has genuine concern for us.

Dear Lord God, Let us not take for granted the freedoms we have. Help us in our freedom to help others who are less fortunate. Amen.