John 8:34-36 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
On July 4th, America remembers a bold declaration — a break from tyranny, a longing for a better government, and the birth of a nation built on liberty. The Founders risked everything to establish a new way of life, one where freedom could flourish. Their cry was clear: “We will no longer be ruled by kings who oppress–we will be governed by laws that reflect liberty and justice.”
But for believers, that cry still echoes deeper. We, too, are longing for a better government–but not one formed by men. We are yearning for a Kingdom not of this world, ruled not by flawed leaders, but by Messiah Yeshua, the Righteous King. We long for the day when the government will rest upon His shoulders (Isaiah 9:6), and peace will fill the earth as waters cover the sea.
Shabbat is a weekly taste of that coming reality. It is not just rest from labor — it is prophetic rest, a sign and shadow of the Messianic Age to come, often referred to as the Shabbat Millennium.
In Jewish thought, just as a Sabbath followed six days of creation, so too there will be six thousand years of human toil followed by a thousand-year reign of the Messiah–the final Shabbat.
As we light the candles of Shabbat and hear the sounds of fireworks overhead, we are caught between two celebrations — one looks back to national freedom, while the other looks forward to cosmic redemption. One was secured by revolution; the other will be fulfilled by revelation–when every eye shall see Him, and every knee shall bow.
Messiah Yeshua proclaimed true liberty when He stood in the synagogue and read from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me… to proclaim liberty to the captives.” (Luke 4:18)
He wasn’t talking about political chains, but spiritual ones. Through His death and resurrection, He broke the power of sin, shame, and death. That is the ultimate independence–freedom not just from Pharaoh or Caesar or king, but from everything that keeps us from entering into God’s presence.
This weekend, as America celebrates freedom and we, as believers, enter the rest of Shabbat, let us remember: the Founders wrote liberty on parchment, God engraved it in stone at Sinai, but through the Messiah, that same freedom is now written on our hearts—eternal, living, and unshakable.
Step into His prophetic reality — a rest is prepared for those who trust in Him, a freedom given that can never be taken, a Kingdom coming that cannot be shaken. So lift up your eyes and cast off every chain. This Shabbat and Independence Day, don’t just celebrate freedom–embrace it, proclaim it, and rest in it. Let your life be a living banner of unshakable truth that no darkness can silence: We are redeemed, we are empowered, and we are unstoppable–by the resurrection power of the King who reigns forever.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]In the late 1800s, an awakening in South Africa led by Andrew Murray was a powerful move of God. Studying that revival yields essential insights concerning the events occurring now throughout the United States. As the spirit of God began to move in Cape Town, Murray compared the SA revival with past experiences of revivals in Europe. He decided that the intense “emotionalism” was a false experience of God and charged in to break up the meeting. Stepping out of the church, he encountered his father standing and weeping. His father rebuked Andrew, “How dare you stop something that I have prayed to happen for 30 years!”
Revivals, that is, genuine Divinely ordained seasons of the activity of God among men, have a universally unusual character. Normal activities and behaviors give way to the tangible influence of God’s Holy Spirit, whose inspiration brings a freedom of expression, emotion, conviction, worship, and other variations from normal experience.
During the Catholic inquisitions, as millions of Christians were being killed by the Jesuit Priests for apostasy, throughout Europe, Christians were fleeing. In Bohemia alone, there were an estimated 4,000,000 Christians before the Jesuit inquisition, and ten years later, only 800,000 people remained in Bohemia – all of whom were Catholic. These terrible events prepared the ground for one of the greatest moves of God that have ever been recorded, the Moravian Revival, which lasted for over 100 years. Gustav Warneck, the German Historian of Protestant Missions, testified, “This small church in twenty years called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church has done in two centuries.”
I love to study past revivals and in studying them, there are two recurring themes that stand out:
First, that He has often used obscure and unknown individuals to lead revivals, and that even these men whom He used so powerfully never considered themselves to be “special”, but often wanted to stay out of the limelight.
During the Great Depression, poverty swept across America like a whirling tornado, ripping up dreams and scattering hopes to the wind. One such poverty twister hit a small part of Texas where a man named Yates ran a sheep ranch. Struggling even to keep food on the table, Yates and his wife did all they could to survive. Finally, they had to accept a government subsidy or lose their home and land to the creditors.
When Joseph was thrown into prison, his life was thought to be over. How could anyone escape an Egyptian prison? But then, in one day, according to God’s perfect timing, he was instantly promoted to reign over all Egypt with only the Pharoah, (“god on earth”) as his Lord…
As we continue our study of Mashiach ben Yosef, we observe that both Joseph and Yeshua (Jesus) were chosen or ‘anointed’ for a special task. When Jacob gifted his son Joseph with a coat of many colors, lifting him up above his brothers, he reflected Joseph’s calling by the Lord for a life work as a leader.