Posted April 15, 2026
If you’re unhappy about paying federal income taxes today, blame the 16th Amendment. If you’re expecting a refund and wish the filing date was earlier, blame Congress. In 1955, it moved the date from March 15 to April 15, reportedly so the government can hold onto your money longer before issuing your refund.
Here’s some related good news: “Tax Freedom Day” will soon be here.
As the Tax Project website explains, this is the day when you have earned enough to pay your combined federal, state, and local tax contributions for the year. It typically falls somewhere between the second and third week of April, though it’s later for some people who pay state income taxes.
For the rest of the year, you can finally begin working for and paying yourself.
On one hand, I’m grateful for the benefits of the taxes I pay. As Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. noted, “The tax is the price of what we pay for civilized society.” I wouldn’t want to try to replicate what the government does with the money I pay, from roads to schools to police and military forces. And I’ve traveled overseas enough to be deeply grateful to live in America, with all our flaws and failings.
On the other hand, it feels liberating to think that everything I earn from this point forward is mine to do with as I wish. My friends in Cuba have no idea what it is like to experience such autonomy.
For most people across most of human history, individual freedom was more a myth than a reality. From subjects of the emperor or monarch, to feudal serfs working lands owned by their lords, to vast populations ruled by autocrats and communist dictators, “unalienable rights” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” were anything but.
These two “hands” go together. We have the freedoms we experience in America in significant part because we pay for them by supporting the governmental agencies who do for us what we would otherwise have to do for ourselves.
You know all of this, of course, whether you’ve thought about it lately or not. The idea that we get what we pay for, that we are consumers who purchase our lifestyles through what we earn, is woven into the fabric of our culture. No element of our daily lives is immune from such transactionalism; we can sever our relationships even with those who love us most if we divorce or abandon them.
Now to my point: I believe this capitalistic mindset to be the greatest single impediment to spiritual awakening in the Western world.
It is a sobering fact that the greatest movements of God’s Spirit today are occurring in places where Western-style democracy is least prevalent.
I have witnessed personally the revival sweeping Cuba. Multitudes of Muslims around the world are turning to Christ after seeing visions and dreams of Jesus. The fastest-growing church in the world is in Iran. The underground church in China is exploding in growth.
Here’s what these miraculous movements have in common: they are happening where people are desperate for what only God can do.
Awakenings in Western history have followed the same pattern. Prior to the great awakenings of 1734, 1792, 1858, and 1904–05, there was widespread immorality, malaise, and even economic and spiritual depression. (For more, see our book, The Fifth Great Awakening and the Future of America.) The awakening that began in South Korea in the 1950s was a direct result of the devastation of the Korean War.
Our problem today is that transactionalism and grace are enemies.
The more I believe, consciously or subliminally, that my spiritual activities and good deeds “purchase” God’s favor, the more I distance myself from his best. This is not because he is a feudal lord who insists that his subjects bow to him in subjugated dependence. It is because grace is the only way an infinitely holy and perfect God can relate to beings whose very nature is transfused by finitude and sin.
“Agur son of Jakeh” (Proverbs 30:1) is not well known, but his ancient questions are still relevant: “Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in his fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth?” (v. 4).
Think about it: Is there anything you can do that the Creator of the universe needs? Do you have anything with which to purchase anything from him?
We are like children borrowing money from our parents to buy them Christmas presents and thinking they are now in our debt. Because people who write and read articles like this one tend to be more religiously active than others, we can especially be tempted by the unstated sense that we have earned what God can only give.
Tim Keller famously wrote, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.” As a result, he noted, “If you want God’s grace, all you need is need, all you need is nothing.”
Then he put his finger on our problem: “But that kind of spiritual humility is hard to muster. We come to God saying, ‘Look at all I’ve done,’ or maybe ‘Look at all I’ve suffered.’ God, however, wants us to look to him—to just wash.”
Why do you need to “just wash” today?
“Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” —Jerry Bridges
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