Tuesday, July 1, 2025
BUT I AM FREE BORN!
Acts 22:27-28
27 Then the chief
captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.
28 And the chief
captain answered, with a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul
said, But I was free born.
Our spiritual freedom is not free. It was purchased at
a great sum on Calvary’s hill by the sacrificial blood of Jesus. It is now freely
offered to those who will receive the adoption of sons.
The Declaration of
Independence was not signed on July 4, 1776. On July 1, 1776, the Second
Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and on the following day 12 of the 13
colonies voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee’s motion for independence. The
delegates then spent the next two days debating and revising the language of a
statement drafted by Thomas Jefferson. On July 4, Congress officially adopted
the Declaration of Independence, and as a result the date is celebrated as
Independence Day. Nearly a month would go by, however, before the actual
signing of the document took place. First, New York’s delegates did not
officially give their support until July 9 because their home assembly hadn’t
yet authorized them to vote in favor of independence. Next, it took two weeks
for the Declaration to be “engrossed”—written on parchment in a clear hand. Most
of the delegates signed on August 2, but several—Elbridge Gerry, Oliver
Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean and Matthew Thornton—signed on a later
date. (Two others, John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston, never signed at
all.) The signed parchment copy now resides at the National Archives in the
Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, alongside the Constitution and the Bill of
Rights.
Dear Lord, thank you
for the immeasurable price you paid for my liberty from sin and hell. Help me
as I live out my life as one who is free born. AMEN
