Friday, July 4, 2014

The Best Things in Life are Costly

We've all heard the The Beatles banging out the lyrics "The best things in life are free, But you can keep them for the birds and bees. Now, give me money. That's what I want!" And, who doesn't want money? A topic for another day.

The best things in life are free. Now, there's a subject!

Free typically is a ploy to draw you into a bargain that is going to cost you something. "BOGO"- See what I mean?

The best things in life are costly. Please keep reading. I'm not promoting lifestyles dripping with diamonds and custom Bentleys. If the stuff accumulated in my life were to melt away, what would be left? 

I am a believer in the living and loving God. Although free to me, that relationship would cost Him dearly. 
For God so loved the world
He gave His only son
And whoever believes in Him will not perish
But have eternal life.
John 3:16

I am an American living in the Land of the Free. It is quite sobering when acknowledging the cost of freedom. Men and women gave their lives for me to claim and enjoy this earthen right. From the first immigrant stepping on to our rich soil a couple of hundred years ago to the U.S. soldier stepping on an IED, yesterday, it cost dearly. 

Upon learning five brothers had been lost during the Civil War, it is reported President Abraham Lincoln sent these words of comfort to Mrs. Lydia Bixby...

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.
Dear Madam,--
I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln

The best free things in my life are costly. Freedom and Salvation. Money could never afford those things. 

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