No. 8

In the end, you will sacrifice for what you love, not what you think. So what is patriotism? And what role does faith in Christ play in it?

Consider this. Ask yourself if your patriotic ideal can stand up in the same room as Christ Jesus. Is your faith attached to this ideal, or does your patriotism grow out of your faith? If you spend time thinking about your country, and you have arrived at your opinions and you hold fast to them, do not neglect to put these opinions to the test of sacrifice.

What would you sacrifice for the opinions you hold? You hold them because you believe they are right. What is it worth to you?

I’m not asking you to talk yourself into some sort of vow to ‘die for what you believe’. To me, that is ridiculous. You can’t fake devotion. Either you will sacrifice, or you won’t. What I am driving at is for us all to align our hearts and our minds; to love the right things so we are never torn between what we love and what we believe.

It is possible to love peace more than righteousness, to love security so much that you are unwilling to sacrifice.

I will admit here the struggle I have over this. Spouting it off in a blog is one thing, but sacrificing for it is entirely another. We need to pray for each other. Pray we have one heart and one mind, that we love what is right. And if we do, then we will certainly possess the courage necessary to sacrifice for it.

To put this into perspective, I have two things to say. One, that eternity is what matters most. Glancing back from heaven, what would seem more valuable? Security, or righteousness? Would it seem worthwhile to be socially accepted because you don’t rock the boat, or to be considered radical sometimes because you loved what is right? Look at life from eternity. What lasts? Line up your opinions with that, and you will love the right things.

Two, sacrifice cannot be seen truly from a worldly perspective. I’m sorry for those of us who manufacture all their opinions from the stuff of this world. You can’t win that way. It’s just smoke, it’s just chasing the wind.


We need to be praying for each other. And we need to repent of valuing too highly those transient things. The truth is, if we value anything but Christ Jesus, we are destined to be shackled, enslaved, and finally devoured by fear.

America as it has always been is a transient thing. But freedom is not. Just like a house is transient, but the family inside it is not, there are worthwhile, lasting things in this nation worth sacrificing for. And if they are right and true things, there is not conflict between holding to them and holding to Christ.

I don’t know how or if we will all be presented with the choice to sacrifice for something. But we must prepare for it by finding and treasuring the eternal things in our nation, in our own lives, and in our churches. Soon our time here will end, and we will get the opportunity to see things from Eternity’s light. Let us hope we will have treasured the things that last.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that seen, but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” II Corinthians 4:16-18