The Last Full Measure of Devotion!

In his Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln used the phrase the last full measure of devotion to honor the soldiers who gave their lives in this bloody battle. The phrase has become one that is used to honor American soldiers, firefighters, first responders, and others who sacrificially give or have given their lives for their country, their community or their home.

As we celebrate this Memorial Day in this COVID-19 era, it’s especially fitting that we pause to remember those who laid down their lives for family, friends, country, and freedom. The virus itself is a war and there are many on the front lines in the medical fields just as on the battlefields of war. This has awakened a sense of patriotism in many Americans and the fight against a common enemy has hopefully brought many of us together.

Although this battle and others are ongoing, the biggest battle we, as Americans, fight today is for the soul of our nation. In so many ways, we have fallen away from the America which honored God unashamedly and openly. We’ve seen federal courts restricting religious symbols and removing the ten commandments from the walls. A nation which honored God unashamedly and openly seems to have lost that freedom or right.

There was a time when we credited God for our blessings and our successes, and we turned to Him during times of trials and losses, but today, we seem to have lost that sense of remembrance. Woodrow Wilson said, “A nation that does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is today or what it is trying to do.’

There are very few nations with a history like America. For over two hundred years we have been a shining light to the world around us. We have been a launching pad that has taken the gospel to literally the very ends of the earth. People from other countries risk their lives to come here and enjoy the freedoms we enjoy each day.

On this Memorial Day, as we remember those who gave so much for the freedoms we enjoy, may we humble ourselves before God and offer him thanks and may God Bless America.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate – we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it will never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth. Abraham Lincoln