As Americans, we love the Fourth of July! It’s the time to bust out your red, white, and blue, grab a lawn chair and watch fireworks, all the while eating apple pie and using the hashtag #murica. We love it because we’re proud to be Americans. We’re thankful for our freedom. We enjoy our freedoms, and we give tribute to the ones who made it possible on that fateful day in 1776. Let freedom ring…ya know?

This is why I worship God.

Some people in America today (and worldwide to be sure) don’t understand why I serve and worship the Almighty God. They (or maybe you) don’t understand why I do my best to adhere so closely to His laws, and give all of myself to His cause. But Independence Day helps, I think. Because we understand being thankful for freedom. We understand celebrating our liberty. We recognize that it’s a big deal, and we make a huge holiday out of it.

But that’s why I worship God, because the liberty and freedom I have in Him is so much greater than the Bill of Rights or freedom from an earthly oppressor. In Christ, I have freedom from the chains of sin (Rom. 6). In Christ, I have been set free from death and am pressing toward eternal life. In Christ, I am no longer a slave to this world or to its lusts or to Satan, but am instead a slave to righteousness, giving my life to serve the One and praise the One and thank the One who freed me.

I am thankful for the Stars and Stripes. I’m thankful for the liberties and freedoms and safety and opportunities I have because I live here. I’m thankful to have a voice in this dark world, one that isn’t stifled by man. I’m thankful that I was born in the land of the free. I am thankful that I am a citizen of this great country. But I am all the more thankful — the most thankful, really — that I was born again into the family of God. I am thankful that I am a citizen of heaven (Philippians 3:20). I am thankful that one day, I will be in the land of the truly free – a place that knows no sin or sorrow or death or distress or distraction (Rev. 21:3-4). I am thankful that one Great day, I will get to sit around the throne of God and praise Him for eternity.

That is why I worship God today. Because I want to worship God forever.

Thanks be to God for affording us the opportunity to live in a land that so desperately needs Jesus, and for considering us worthy enough to be the vessels to take it to them. Yes, I am proud to be an American, but mostly, I am humbled to be a child of God. And I will worship Him until the day I die, thanking Him for my freedom from sin, even though it cost Him His Only Begotten Son.