A declaration

A declaration

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Words from the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America July 4 1776.
Noble words. Words much of the world aspire to.
Words while not from the Bible echo it’s sentiments.
Under God all men are equal. They have a freewill. That freewill allows them to believe in God or not. To do with their life as they wish. To follow a path they feel is right for them even if it is contrary to what God wishes.
Abba Hillel Silver wrote,
“Faith in God is the strongest bulwark of a free society.  Human freedom began when men became conscious that over and above society and nature there is a God who created them...who fashioned them in His likeness, and that they are, therefore, possessed of intrinsic and independent significance and are endowed, as individuals, with original and irrevocable rights and authority.”
                                                                                                                Abba Hillel Silver.
One of those rights is to reject God.
As a Christian I have no right to force my beliefs on anyone. All I can do is present what I believe to people. It is their right to accept or reject it.
God it is true wants all people everywhere to turn to Him. To have a personal relationship with Him. But He wants them to come into that relationship of their own freewill. A person forced to make a decision will not necessarily make a sincere decision.
I as a Christian believe that we must make our decision in this life where we will spend eternity. As a result I feel I am obligated to tell the world about Jesus.
Perhaps the best message ever presented to non-Christians was presented by the Apostle Paul while in Athens. A place in the ancient world where people were free to think as they wished and exchanged views on just about everything.
The Book of acts records,
“So he (Paul) reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.  
A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.  
Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?  
You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”  
(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.  
For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  
And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  
From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  
God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  
‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 
“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill.  
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.  
For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” 
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”  
At that, Paul left the Council.  
A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.”
                                                                                              Acts 17:17-34.
That message is as important today as it was when Paul spoke it. It is a message for all people of all ages.
Please think about it.