As the 4th of July holiday arrives, our minds naturally turn toward patriotism and freedom.  But today we need a feeling of belonging to each other as well.  Perhaps we also need to renew a spirit of nationalism that draws the string even tighter.

Historically, nationalism has produced the very best in world class citizens who have gone on to produce history’s greatest music, art and literature.

Giant nationalistic figures like the Polish composer, Frederic Chopin, who was a small frail man with small hands, but today his music still subdues the “giants” who play his piano works.

Another is Russian nationalist composer, Tchaikovsky, whose Bb Piano Concerto was performed by the previously little known American pianist, Van Cliburn, who brought the two cold war superpowers together in 1957 when he won the Russian contest with an hitherto unsurpassed rendering of the Tchaikovsky Concerto.  Socially and politically, our Russian and American hearts were joined together in nationalism, freedom, and a feeling of belonging.

Our hearts cry out to know that we are not alone!  God has forever proclaimed that we really do belong to Him; we were made for His pleasure.  We are uniquely God’s.  We belong and are one in the bonds of His love.  

Evil savagery lurks beneath the human heart that denies God’s gift of belonging.  It destroys the human spirit that binds us.  Bondage and violence take its place.
Julia Howe penned these words during the Civil War in 1861 and they are an equal warning for us today:
“I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps.  They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps: I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps, His day is marching on.”

Ladies and Gentlemen:  We need to celebrate fiercely that we are a nation under God.   We owe no apologies for our strong nationalism and religious founding which has spread freedom and human rights around the world.  God has ordained and enabled America the Beautiful to proclaim His Truth is marching on. 

So let freedom ring!  Let it ring loud and clearly.  Celebrate His righteousness and Truth.  

And May God Be Praised!