My journey this week took me to Juneteenth and freedom. It started when the General Order No. 3 was delivered to Texas on June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of Jan. 1, 1863, and was delivered by U.S. General Gordon Granger: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.” Juneteenth has become an official state holiday. Yesterday it was celebrated in cities and towns across the entire United States.
‘Freedom’ is only a word until one is truly set free. As a believer in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Savior, there were many freed souls who worshiped on plantations and in black churches long before the equality of rights, “Civil Rights” were practiced in America. The strength of faith set free enslaved people and gave them a special generosity of love and forgiveness many of the owners did not earn. I have met with many brothers and sisters of other colors who shared that same forgiveness of spirit in today’s time and place with their fellow citizens.
For us to cling to oldfashioned prejudices shows no respect for each other or the Lord God. John 8:31-32: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Jesus died on the cross for all the sins of the world; but He does not give us freedom to do anything we want; rather, freedom to follow God.
