Every week, the headlines remind us how far America has fallen. This week, news from Cornell University dominated the screen.
I won’t rehash the details. A legal case is underway, and the courts will weigh the evidence. But I will tell you where my heart went. The behavior being reported is abhorrent, and I won’t soften that word. Sin is sin. Yet my first thought wasn’t the headline. It was about the souls.
Those students are somebody’s sons and daughters. They need Jesus. They don’t see it that way. They are slaves, and they don’t know it.
I am not writing from a hilltop. I have my own chains, and Jesus broke them. That is exactly why I can’t stay quiet.
The Chains We Can’t See
Jesus said it plainly: “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
That is the oldest trick in the book. Sin whispers freedom and delivers captivity. Do what you want. Take what you want. Be who you want. Then the bill comes due, and the chain is already around the ankle.
We enslave ourselves by succumbing to temptation, one small yes at a time. Nobody wakes up and decides to become a captive. It happens by degrees. And every generation, including mine, has the same problem.
Then there’s Hebrews 2:14-15, the verse that stirred all of this in me:
“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
Read that last line again. All their lives held in slavery by their fear of death.
If this life is all there is, then you had better grab everything now. Every pleasure. Every thrill. Every bit of approval. Paul named that philosophy: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32b). Fear of the end drives people to chase the moment, and the chase becomes a cage.
But Jesus didn’t send a memo from heaven. He took on flesh and blood. He walked into death and broke its power. A person who no longer fears the grave is finally free to live for something bigger than the next impulse.
A Republic Built on Freedom
On July 4, 1776, America was founded on this very hunger for freedom. Our Declaration of Independence says all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” among them “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Founders wanted freedom from tyranny and unjust laws, and they understood that those rights come from God, not from government.
They also understood something we forget. On October 11, 1798, John Adams, America’s 2nd President, wrote to the officers of the Massachusetts Militia: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” A free republic needs citizens who can govern themselves. Self-government starts as soul-government.
Every Christian can celebrate this. Our Lord has led us out of slavery to sin and into freedom with Him. Freedom from sin, tyranny, and unjust laws is a treasure we must hold dear. Lose the first, and the other two will not last.
On October 1, 2026, Brandon Tatum, a former police officer and Turning Point USA speaker, stood before a room full of college students at Grand Canyon University. Early on, he paid tribute to Turning Point USA’s founder, Charlie Kirk, calling him “one of the most courageous, bold individuals to ever live.” Then he said something everyone needs to take to heart: “Boldness is not just words.” Being a Christian, he told them, “You have to have a lifestyle.”
He talked about loving this country and not being ashamed to speak and live boldly for his faith. “There’s no place where you can worship freely like the United States of America. … I do not care what people say about me. I only care what the Lord thinks about me.”
Then he turned to a controversy at “another university.” He didn’t name a school and didn’t get into the details, but everyone knew which college he was referring to. He asked those students not to fall for temptation, and he said, “If you want to be great in life, you better do the right thing when nobody’s watching.”
Then he asked a question:
“When God blesses you with an opportunity, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to be the one that makes the news for something bad, or are you going to be somebody that worships God openly and is unashamed?”
Officer Tatum is speaking to college students, but that question belongs to every one of us. It follows us into the kitchen, the boardroom, and the voting booth.
He also said something every parent and grandparent should hear too:
“After you leave this event, I want you to … be changed and be different and be more bold and be courageous because I think it’s invaluable when you go out, and you communicate what you believe, that you do it the right way. Now, is it fruitful to go out and badger people and clown them and yell at them and call them stupid every day?
I don’t think that’s the most effective way to do it. … Sometimes you need to tell them they’re crazy. It’s two left shoes. All right? But if you want to be effective, people ask me this every time I go to a university. You’ve got to do it with love and conviction.
If you don’t care, don’t talk to them. Don’t do it just to go viral. Don’t do it just to put it on social media. Say, “I owned you.” But to be effective, you have to talk to people like you actually care. And not just that you actually care, but that you have to actually care, or in reality you need to care in order to be effective.”
Well said, Officer Tatum. That is neighborly love. We don’t wave at the lost from a distance. We walk toward them.
Fix Your Thoughts on Jesus
This morning’s Family Wins Devotional reading, for October 4, lands on Hebrews 3:1: “Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest.”
The devotional quotes F. B. Meyer, who urges us to consider Jesus as Apostle, as Priest “tempted as we are, yet without sin,” as Creator, and as the all-faithful One who “will never resign his charge.” The devotional puts it bluntly: “Take away Christ, and whatever you have left is not the Christian life.”
Do you see the thread? The Creator who endows us with rights is the same Jesus who shared our flesh to break our chains. Hebrews 2 tells us what He did. Hebrews 3 tells us where to look.
Fix your thoughts on Jesus, and watch what happens.
A better citizen. Free people govern themselves. They vote, serve, and speak with courage and kindness, and they don’t need a headline to tell them right from wrong.
A better young adult. You find the integrity Officer Tatum described, the kind that holds when nobody’s watching. You stop being a slave to the crowd.
A better parent. Your children are watching you more than they’re listening to you. Let them catch you with an open Bible.
A better man or a better woman. A godly husband isn’t made in a day. Neither is a godly wife, a godly father, or a godly mother. They’re made in small, quiet moments in the Word. One verse. One choice. One day at a time.
If you’re reading this and you feel the weight of a chain, I have good news. You are not too far gone. Not one of those students is. Not you. Not me.
Jesus said, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).
Start today. Give God fifteen minutes before the noise gets its hooks into you.
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America needs free people. Free people need Jesus, and Jesus is still setting captives free.