I just want to share some personal thoughts about what Memorial Day could have to do with worship. One of the best ways to honor the fallen is by challenging the living. May we be challenged by these thoughts.
We know the beginning of worship is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, and soul and that the living out of our worship is to love our neighbor as ourself. To go with that, John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends."
We have thousands buried across the United States and in some twenty different cemeteries on foreign soil who gave their all so that we would have liberty and freedom, including the freedom to worship. Jesus gave us ultimate freedom and liberty from sin and Satan, and our fallen heroes over the years have fought to secure freedom for us to worship Him as we see fit.
When serving as a missionary to Zimbabwe, I remember preaching one Sunday morning in a church on the outskirts of the capital city. I could see out a window where thousands had gathered nearby for a political rally in a one-party marxist state. As I was preaching, party loyalists entered the church and took men out of the church one by one, but I kept preaching. After church I discovered that these men had been beaten because they were at church rather than at the political rally, and then they were dragged to the rally.
Have we taken for granted our freedom to gather as the body of Christ and worship as we please? There are people all over the world who don't have the freedoms we have; and we have them because so many gave the ultimate sacrifice to secure our way of life and freedom to worship.
This Memorial Day weekend may we celebrate our freedom, liberty, and security in Christ. May we also honor the fallen with a challenge to the living: to continue to stand for truth and to keep completing our worship over and over by "loving our neighbors as we love ourselves". mjm
