Yesterday, as a country, we in America celebrated our independence from England. That seems a little hard to say, since we have lots of friends in England now. And that fact itself is an illustration of how relative these matters of state truly are. Our allegiance is first and foremost to God and to our Lord Jesus Christ. After that, well, it depends on where you live, and what kind of role you play in the government of human beings.

The scriptures place high regard on local rulers and authorities as being set up by God to maintain social order, and this was in a time when the ruling political system resembled a dictatorship much more than a democracy. Local governments maintain control. But our allegiance to country is never to rival or be equated with our allegiance to God.

Abraham Lincoln made the right distinction in his second inaugural address, at a time when the nation was at crisis in a bitter civil war, “Both (North and South) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other…. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

God’s purposes are far above that of any government’s. They have to do with His kingdom, which is not of this world. The greatest privilege established by America is independence, and primarily, an independence, which, in its highest form, consists of the freedom to worship a God that is above all kings and parliaments and presidents and governments, whether they acknowledge Him or not.

For those who celebrated the Fourth of July yesterday, let’s remember what our freedom is really for.