Sweet Land Of Liberty

1 Peter 2:11-17 (The Message)

11-12 Friends, this world is not your home, so don't make yourselves cozy in it. Don't indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they'll be won over to God's side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.
13-17 Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God's emissaries for keeping order. It is God's will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you're a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.

Do you think that your liberty in Christ allows you the freedom to do anything that you want to do?

We are in this world but not of it and it is something that we easily forget. We want to make our mark in the world anyway we can and oftentimes at the expense of others. God wants us to be blameless. He doesn't want us to say that we're blameless and then live anyway that we care to.

Peter did an excellent job of describing what this liberty is all about. Our lives should be examples of Christ in us. This example that we live should be enough to show the world the difference that God makes in our lives. He goes on to say that we should respect the world's authorities because God put them there for His reasons. Our freedom comes in serving God, not breaking the rules.

We should also love and respect our fellow believers. They seem to take the biggest hit from us because it's easy to take them for granted (they understand, it's ok). It's never right to take advantage of anyone. True liberty is walking out our Christian lives. We enjoy the freedom to do that.

Love God, pray for our leaders, respect each other and let this truly be a

sweet land of liberty.