Each Monday on the Pure Purpose blog, I feature This Week’s 7, a simple list about an everyday topic, giving you ideas and encouragement. I compiled this week’s list in honor of Independence Day. I challenge you take the next few moments to reflect on the significance of freedom.

1. “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” (Benjamin Franklin)
2. “Free at last; free at last; thank God Almighty we are free at last.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
3. “The real democratic idea is, not that every man shall be on a level with every other, but that every one shall have liberty, without hindrance, to be what God made him.” (Henry Beecher Ward)
4. “Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.” (Pope John Paul II)
5. “Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)
6. “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
7. “Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.” (George Bernard Shaw)

We might call this Independence Day, but it has nothing to do with individual independence. We are united. We were created for community. We stand together…and fight and die together. What are you sacrificing today?