Also known as Independence Day, July 4th is a celebration of the founding of the United States. It is a celebration of freedom. Our bid for freedom has been costly. Thousands upon thousands of lives have been lost defending it. Countless families have, at least in this lifetime, forfeited some of the joy that goes with fireworks, family outings, cook outs and trips to the beach. But the sacrifices that have been made for you and me to enjoy the basic freedoms should not go unrecognized. Americans enjoy freedoms that most of the world can only dream of--in fact, sometimes the possibility is so far removed that they can't even bring themselves to dream of such freedoms that Americans take for granted in their daily routine. We should enjoy the freedom that we have, and we should be thankful for it. We should also realize that with freedom comes enormous responsibility. The more freedom we have, the more responsibility we must shoulder. I asked several of my friends what freedom meant to them. I would like to share with you some of their responses: * "I understand freedom to be the basic right of mankind, which God has legislated through His laws. We see freedom the essence of the Sabbath law, and the fundamental reason for all civil law which God created. God did not make us good or bad, but made us FREE. It is this gift that enables creativity to become like God. Free to follow Christ's example, free not to. Free to love one another, and free not to. "It is in the choosing to follow righteousness, choosing to ask God for help, that a person can truly become like God, Who is also free. It is this freedom that makes His love so genuine." * "If I had to choose one word that best describes freedom, it would be the word choices. No person is truly free until they have the ability to make choices of their own and to be free to receive the consequences of those choices, good, bad or indifferent." * "Freedom means many things to me, but among them is the freedom to get hurt. Under this broad banner is included the freedom to be poor. I know how strange this sounds, but think about it. One of the driving forces in a society is fear--fear of going hungry, fear of being cold and without shelter, fear of having no money in your old age, fear of not being able to pay the rent. "For many people, this is all that drives them to work in the morning. And when the government in its wisdom removes all fear, it has also taken away your freedom. And by removing the freedom to get hurt, they remove all excitement from life. When you no longer are free to get hurt, you are no longer free to climb trees." * "Freedom, in its most critical application, has everything to do with personal integrity. Historically, we have so many examples of lack of personal freedom with regard to physical constraints, and that is not to mankind's credit. But the most unacceptable form of virtual imprisonment is mind control. "We are what we believe, what we feel, and what we do. If we hand over the reins to another human, we loose the essence of our very being. No one can take away from us what we are unwilling to hand over but, like Esau, we are vulnerable (or oblivious) at times and may find that we've sacrificed our spiritual inheritance (or personal integrity) for any number of fleeting rewards. Freedom, to me, is to retain responsibility for my thoughts and actions." * "I have adopted the words of a Nazi concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl to help me define freedom. We are all free no matter what Situation we are in. The choice is ours. People can do horrible things to our physical bodies, even down to taking everything away from us (as Frankl describes it stripped down naked and even the hair taken from your body). But we are all free to choose how we respond to what is done to us. Frankl observed among those prisoners who failed that it was '...only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influences.' "Too many times we blame other people, events and circumstances for our failings and our actions and our lack of freedom. True freedom is realizing we have the choice as to how we respond to events and circumstances and what we do with our lives. 'That which does not kill me, makes me stronger'. And as we turn our life over to God we are doubly blessed in that we have the Holy Spirit to protect and guide our minds. With that kind of help, we are able to bear anything. "The two things that Frankl explained robbed us of our freedom were -- bitterness and disillusionment. Frankl explained from his observations that these two attitudes damage the character of the free man. And of course, God warns us strongly about the root of bitterness." Yes, my friends, the more freedom we have, the more responsibility we shoulder. On this 4th of July and on every other day, let's be thankful for the freedoms that we enjoy and, please, let's be responsible in exercising our freedoms.