By Jon Kauffman
Our Pastor told us, “The root word of happiness is happen. Happiness is a good feeling or contentment because something good happened to us.” I’m happy because I ate a good breakfast. An hour later I’m not happy because my computer crashed and I lost 15 minutes of work on my document.
Joy on the other hand is peace and well being of the spirit because we have Jesus in our lives. Jesus can give us joy when we are in the middle of great pain and difficulty. Joy does not depend on the circumstances of our lives.
There are also two kinds of freedom.
The freedom the military and our government laws gives us and the freedom Jesus gives us.
The military can give us freedom to build church buildings and to use those buildings for worship. The United States has the most powerful military in the world. Who can defeat it?
The freedom Jesus gives us does not depend on circumstance. A Christian from North Africa beheaded by Boko Haram has more true freedom than the average American.
Jesus said, 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven… Matthew 5: 44,45
How can we kill for transitory freedom when Jesus tells us to love our enemies?
Reasons why other Christians participate in violence: Reasons Christians Give to Say Violence by Christians is Legitimate
Copyright © 2019 by Jon Kauffman. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.
Permission is gladly given to re-blog this post.
Picture: Copyright © 2019 by Leon Kauffman
NONVIOLENT CHRISTIANS 
Love to 2 ideas of freedom! Thanks for sharing! If you’d ever like to guest post please check out DailyPS.com, we would love to share your person with our readers!
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Please feel free to reblog my post on your website.
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God bless u. Thank you for following my page. I also followed you.
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Amen. ” It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…” Ga. 1 is true for all Christians, in all places and times. We detract from that with worldly ideas. https://snowfar4.wixsite.com/christianpacifism/about
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You are very right, but we have to apply wisdom in all that we do as Christians, for sometimes, God would not do for us what He has empowered us to do. “Wisdom is profitable to direct!”
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Good mornin to you.
Thank you for visiting my site recently, and I want to tell you that I agree with you that violence is abhorrent.
Patriotism, is not only a wicked tool of the devil to coerce support for violence, but patriotism is also idolatry.
Now, I wouldn’t swear allegiance to anything that isn’t God.
This whole topic reminds me of three young Hebrew men who wouldn’t bow to a government image.
When you have time, come back and visit my site. In particular, visit my post that’s called “patriotism is idolatry.”
Have a nice day sir. 🙂
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Sue, You said it very well
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Freedom in Christ is not freedom to continue in sinful addiction. It is also not freedom from suffering, pain, abuse, mistreatment, rejection, persecution, etc. In fact, part of our freedom in Christ involves suffering and persecution for the sake of righteousness and for the sake of the gospel. And, our freedom in Christ means death to “our rights,” i.e. to what we think we should have or to what we think we deserve. It is death to sin and self. And, it is also submission to our Lord as owner of our lives and us as his bond-slaves.
This is the freedom that is talked about in Romans 6 & 8. And, that freedom also involves us being in submission to human authority, too, but never to submit to rejection or denial of Jesus Christ and his gospel or to sin. My understanding has always been that, when the government comes and confiscates our property, we are to relinquish it. My understanding, too, is that our true enemy is Satan and his hordes, and we are to fight them with spiritual weapons of warfare (Eph. 6:10-20), not with physical weapons of warfare.
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