A Shared Destiny

I recently discovered that President John Adams (our country’s 2nd president) and Thomas Jefferson (3rd president) died on the same day: July 4, 1826…fifty years to the day that they both signed the Declaration of Independence. These two forefathers were close friends through most of their lives, aside from a brief time when they politically rivaled each other. But they were again close at the end of their lives and corresponded daily until their deaths.

Both of these scholars served as ambassadors to France together and undoubtedly had significant discussions regarding the formation of the United States and its government. They believed in God and understood the necessity of pinning our country’s underlying foundation upon morality dependent upon Him.

In light of the current political, social and normal climate of these United States; I found the following quotes by John Adams to be quite poignant:

This is the last of earth! I am content.

Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

242 years later, we are living our democracy with great pain and duress. I wonder if this was what they imagined? Could they have conjured a thought of a society with instant and global communication? Could they have imagined a country “under God” beholding the philosophy of definition that “every one does what is right in their own eyes?”

And so both men reached their final breath on the 50th anniversary of the epic creation of the United States of America…the visionary reality they imagined and fought so hard to create. It matters to us what they did 242 years ago.

Destiny. Adams and Jefferson faced their Creator within eternal moments of each other. They were clothed in the actions of their lives…great actions as their destinies collided and created a country. They were judged on what they believed and trusted regarding Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection!

Hebrew’s 9:27, New Living Translation

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment…

Being in the moment will never be more real than when you stand at the Bema Seat of Christ where He judges the living and the dead. Anticipation of that destiny should bring you to an in the moment and present face-to-face with Jesus and His work of salvation now!