You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in one single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out or you will be destroyed by each another.
Galatians 5:13
Are we still America ... the "One Nation Under God" that we're become so proud of? During election time, it sure doesn't seem like it. In fact, it seems like we're two warring, biting, disrespectful and unloving factions who happen to live within the same national boundaries.
How did this happen to us?
1. Pride. And there is plenty to go around on both sides. Just look at Facebook. We don't read and humbly consider what others are saying. We wait to speak so we can say why WE are right. Pride.
2. Misinformation. It seems almost comical how different we think things are. "How can they believe that's true?", we say. Well, it's based on filling ourselves with certain information, and surrounding ourselves with similar people, who all believe a certain narrative that they are comfortable with. This is how news outlets are built. And it's not for the purposes of informing or educating you. It's for the purposes of manipulating your feelings in order to ultimately sell you products. It's all about the advertisers. They will draw you in and keep you there however they need to.
3. Biased data sources. Related to the above, the most powerful and simple way to control a populace and get them to believe things that simply aren't true, is that digital rectangle we all have in our living rooms (and many times lots of other places throughout the house). If we did not have this "idiot box" in our homes, we would likely not think the way we think. Rather, we would think for ourselves. We would search for actual data about how things are, and come to pretty common to conclusions, I imagine. But thinking for ourselves and researching takes work. It's far easier to listen to opinions and narratives spouting from Talking Heads on a television or the radio, and swallowing them whole, as though they are your own unique opinion.
4. We no longer stand on a firm foundation. Think of it this way: If we to place a model boat on the edge of the sea, then come back the next day... is it still there? Or has it drifted so far off into the sea that perhaps we have no idea where it is anymore? My point: If our opinions and perspectives have no ultimately steady baseline that stays firm and does not move or change, all that we're doing is drifting aimlessly at sea, guessing (at best) based on our feelings and/or based on what the people around us say is true. Further, two model boats set on the same edge of the sea will not be in the same place after enough days have passed. They will not be near the edge of the sea where you set them, nor will they be anywhere near one another. That's us - that's the America we've become. What we refuse to acknowledge is that the only firm foundation ... the only baseline that remains firm and never changes ... is God's Word. And if we don't have that, there is no coast. We are all just adrift with no land in sight, guessing what reality must be ... and perhaps questioning whether or not there ever was any land to begin with.
We were called to be free. That was the point of America from the beginning, to be the "land of the free". We as people weren't perfect by any means (e.g. slavery, women couldn't vote), but the idea was pure. But now, most of us believe that thinking however we want to think and doing whatever we want to do is freedom. But that isn't freedom at all. Rather, it's chaos. No child is comforted by a lack of consistency. No sports event is fun when everyone isn't following the same rules. And no country is free without God's Word and Truth as its basis... as its firm foundation.
Without God, we end up as we've become. Not free. Not happy. Divisive. Looking to devour one another. He warned us about this, and we refused to listen.
And the Enemy is thrilled with what we've become.
