Liberty requires costly sacrifices, including many lives lost and cities, estates, farms, and businesses destroyed during the Revolution and later wars fought to secure and preserve it for Americans and others. Americans have believed that freedom is an inalienable right of all mankind granted by God at the same time as life, yet it demands eternal vigilance against indolence, apathy, and the forces that threaten to reduce or eliminate human liberty. People tend to give their freedoms away piecemeal for security, bread and circuses, and promises of future reward rather than resisting sudden totalitarianism. The preservation of liberty depends upon the intellectual and moral character of the people, for sin enslaves and destroys while God's way of life liberates.

Liberty is not free. Liberty is very costly because it costs the dedication of one's life to a goal that cannot yet be seen. Liberty can be lost by giving it away or by giving up. The Israelites underestimated the cost of liberty. Full liberty under Jesus Christ requires devotion to His cause in order to meet what is required.

The New Covenant grants liberty in Jesus Christ with the goals of controlling oneself by renewal in the image of the Creator. This liberty requires presenting the body as a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to God as reasonable service. One must not conform to this world but instead be transformed by the renewing of the mind to prove the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Everything in life becomes an act of worship and service, with all that is not of God cast aside as a sacrifice. The cost includes time, energy, knowledge, experiences, skills, attitudes, and perspective given in service to God. Obedience to commandments demonstrates love for God and is required to keep the covenant. Discipleship demands giving Christ first place by hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and one's own life in the sense of loving them less than Him. One must bear the cross and forsake all to follow Him, which may bring rejection by people in general including family and former associates. Sin must not reign in the mortal body, and its lusts must not be obeyed through any member such as hands, mouth, eyes, or mind. The problem of sin is addressed by stopping sinful choices rather than by abolishing the law, and this requires deliberate choice empowered by the Holy Spirit. Tribulations produce perseverance, character, and hope through the love of God poured out by the Spirit. The old man dies as self-respect and life ambitions are lost, and neutrality toward Christ is impossible. God is justified in these demands because He has already given justification by faith, peace, access to Himself, hope, and the Holy Spirit. Sacrifice is not optional but must be practiced to produce transformation into the image of Jesus Christ, or one will not enter the Kingdom of God.

The cost that it took to give us this liberty demands loyalty to God and His government through obedience to His laws. Sin is disloyalty. If one reaches the place of practicing sin without any thought of loyalty or the cost that it took to give us this liberty, there remains no more sacrifice for sins. A certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries applies instead. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who has trodden under foot the Son of God and has counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and has done despite unto the Spirit of grace. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.