Here’s a reminder of what the privileges we have in our country have cost us in terms of lost American lives in battle:
4,079 Americans have died since the 2003 Iraq War began.
58,169 Americans were killed in the Vietnam conflict.
33,741 Americans died in the Korean conflict.
405,400 Americans were killed in World War II.
115,000 Americans died in World War I.
We thank God for all we have and remember today the practical and political freedom we enjoy as a nation, due to the ultimate patriotic sacrifice.
We also pause to remember that personal, spiritual and ultimate freedom cam at a much higher cost – the cost of God’s Son to be the propitiation for our sin. Jesus Christ made the ultimate of all sacrifices to bring peace in a battle we could never win against an enemy who actually loved us enough to forgive us through the death of His own Son.
While we were still sinners, our enemy, who also was our maker, sent Christ to earth to live the only life the Father would accept and die the only death that could satisfy the Father’s offended glory, so that we might have the benefits of a righteousness not our own. He who knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
