A Christian's Guide to Voting: Individual Liberty

By Jeremy Stalnecker

As we continue our series on “A Christian’s Guide to Voting,” I want to bring to your attention to a third issue. Now, remember as we get into this, it’s our goal to, instead of voting for the issues that are important to us, to vote for the issues that are important to God. In voting as in everything in life, We should seek to view the world and make decisions Biblically; not emotionally, not culturally, not politically, but Biblically. “What would the Bible tell me to do? How would the Bible guide me here?” What’s important to God, and let me make that important to me. Well, here’s another issue, an issue that I believe is important to God. It’s this one: Individual Liberty. Now as I say that, Individual Liberty, many of you might step back and say, “that is an American value or an American virtue. It has nothing to do with God.” Our framers, I believe, the founders of our country would disagree with you.

In fact, in the Declaration of Independence, we have the words that the inalienable right given to us by God is the right or the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Those inalienable rights are given to us by our creator. What does that mean? Inalienable? It means they cannot be taken away. They were given to us by our creator. So we’re born with these rights the rights of life, We talked about that a couple of episodes ago. That’s given to us by God. God gives us life, liberty, that’s the ability to make decisions and to pursue what it is that God has created us to do, and then the pursuit of happiness, that is to live the life that brings joy, the kind of joy in living the life that God has created us, or given us life to live.

You see, the idea of liberty, although we value it as Americans, is a God-given right.

It’s a value that God holds dear. In fact in the Bible, from a theological perspective, we could talk about individual soul liberty. That is the ability that we have and have been given by God to respond to His leading and to His will.

He values liberty. And it’s given to us by him when we talk about individual liberty, we need to understand as Christians what we’re talking about. Really what we’re talking about is this; the ability to live our lives and make decisions and raise our families and work jobs in a way that reflects what God has created us to do. It is having the ability to fully be what God wants us to be to do what God wants us to do and to accomplish His will for our lives. When we talk about individual liberty please don’t think about this culturally are political, don’t be pushed back into a corner to say well that’s because you’re American you care about that and you shouldn’t care so much about individual liberty. It is individual liberty, politically, culturally, in our country that gives us the ability to do what God has called us to do.

Now I understand that with Individual liberty comes tremendous responsibility. What’s crazy about this or what so many people miss is that if we’re living under the umbrella of individual liberty given to us by God to pursue his will then we think Biblically and the Bible tells us to be kind to be considerate to love our neighbors to do what is good for other people to sacrifice ourselves. That’s the expression of individual liberty. But if we give our individual liberty away politically culturally we give our ability to worship God to live for God to express ourselves and to pursue the joy that He set before us. We give all that away as well. Now, It is inalienable. It’s given to us by God. culture and people in authority can’t take away your ability to worship God, But they can greatly inhibit your ability to do what he has created you to do.