God Set Me Free Quotes & Sayings

I'm Free "

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free.
I'm following the path God laid for me.
I took God's hand when I heard the call;

I turned my back and left it all.
I could not stay another day

To laugh, to love, to work or play.

Tasks left undone must stay that way,
I found that place at the close of day.
If my parting has left a void,

Then fill it with remembered joy.

A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss.
Ah, yes, these things, I too, will miss.
Be not burdened with times of sorrow,

I wish you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life's been full, I savored much,

Good friends, good times, a loved one's touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief;

don't lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me,
God wanted me now, God set me free. — Harold S. Kushner

I never realized how much I've become dependent on human approval until God took it away. I didn't even realize that I was in a self-made prison of human approval and human acceptance. Most of the prisons we live in we are not conscious of. God showed me Jesus plus nothing equals everything. And everything minus Jesus equals nothing. That set me free. — Tullian Tchividjian

The Israelites' slavery in Egypt is the equivalent of our slavery to sin. God sent Moses to deliver them from bondage, and He sent Jesus Christ to set us free. — Joyce Meyer

May there not be some subconscious jealousy that motivates our reactions to other people? Why do we eat chocolate sundaes when we know that we should reduce? Are we free from the influence of parental training? The Scriptures say, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Parental training and all education proceed on the assumption that the will is not free, but can be trained, motivated, and directed. Finally, beyond both physiology and psychology there is God. Can we be sure that he is not directing our choices? Do we know that we are free from his grace? The Psalm says, "Blessed is the man whom you choose and cause to approach you." Is it certain that God has not caused us to choose to approach him? Can we set a limit to God's power? Can we tell how far it extends and just where it ends? Are we outside his control? — Gordon H. Clark

We enslave in the manner we talk to ourselves. But the truth is, God already set us free. He secured our release. To constantly hurt ourselves, resting in our inadequacy, is to call Him a LIAR. — Mary E. DeMuth

The death of God has set the angels free. And they are terrible. There are principalities and powers. Angels are the thoughts of God. Now he had been dissolved into his thoughts which are beyond our conception in their nature and their multiplicity and their power. God was at least the name of something which we thought was good. Now even the name has gone and the spiritual world is scattered. There is nothing any more to prevent the magnetism of many spirits. — Iris Murdoch

I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous case - the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chain of slavery, and set the black man free. — R.M. Ballantyne

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person. — Pope Francis

Nature knows nothing of imperfection; imperfection is a human perception of nature. Inasmuch as we are part of nature we are also perfect; it is our humanity that is imperfect. And, ironically, because of our capacity for imperfection and error we are free beings - a freedom that no stone or animal can enjoy. Without the possibility of error and real indeterminacy implied by the quantum theory, human liberty is meaningless. The God that plays dice has set us free. — Heinz R. Pagels

In Hebrews 12:2, 'the race set before us' is not a sprint but a marathon. We are promised popularity, ease, and fun if we will pursue the lifestyles presented to us by the world. We are promised easy credit, 250 channels, unlimited minutes, all you can eat, no-fault divorce, free wireless, confidential abortions, and safe sex.
Those are the 'joys set before us' by the world, and most people trust these promises to deliver joy apart from God. But notice what is happening. The pursuit of the excellence of Jesus Christ is replaced by the pursuit of the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The knowledge of Jesus Christ is replaced with the ratings of what or who is most popular, and self-control is traded for self-indulgence. Consequently, there is no foundation for endurance. Even God's people quit jobs and marriages at the same rate as the world. More tragically, many of God's people quit trusting God. They have been stripped of Christian character. — Jim Berg

Imagine God and Man set down together to play that game of chess that we call life. The one player is a master, the other a bungling amateur, so the outcome of the game cannot be in question. The amateur has free will, he does what he pleases, for it was he who chose to set up his will against that of the master in the first place; he throws the whole board into confusion time and again and by his foolishness delays the orderly ending of it all for countless generations, but every stupid move of his is dealt with by a masterly counterstroke, and slowly but inexorably the game sweeps on to the master's victory. But, mind you, the game could not move on at all without the full complement of pieces; Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, Pawns; the master does not lose sight of a single one of them. — Elizabeth Goudge

I watched her with the crab as she ignored all my admonitions that the poor crab just needed to be set free if he was to have any chance of surviving. And God showed up there on that beach to teach me a lesson. Nothing survives when it's being smothered. Life, real life, requires being free to move about in the great big ocean, not being cradled in little hot hands that will stifle independence and creativity. We can't keep our crabs (or our kids) in a bucket and expect them to go far in life. — Melanie Shankle

They go and set up free-will with the heathen philosophers and say that a man's free will is the cause why God chooseth and not another, contrary to all scriptures. — William Tyndale

I think Jesus is saying, Look, you guys are running around like monkeys trying to get people to clap, but people are fallen, they are separated from God, so they have no idea what is good or bad, worthy to be judged or set free, beautiful or ugly to begin with. Why not get your glory from God? Why not accept your feelings of redemption because of His pleasure in you, not the fickle and empty favor of man? And only then will you know who you are, and only then will you have true, uninhibited relationships with others. — Donald Miller

"I Don't Want to Miss A Thing" is a hard song to perform (Laughs), I was worried that I was not going to reach that significant note that is at the end of the song. Thank god, Steven [Tyler] really loved it! He was the nicest and friendliest judge that I have met. He also invited me to chat with him whether I had free time on the Idol set. — Jessica Sanchez

We will find it increasingly difficult to believe that we've been set free from sin, from the law's power to condemn, and that God's smile is resting upon us if we continually give ourselves over to what we know we should avoid. Sin strips our faith, and it leads to ultimate deadness in our lives. — Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

We are free, in the West, to choose; we have real choice to pursue our own desires; we are free to set the goals and contents of our own lives; the West is made up of individuals who are free to decide what meaning to give to their lives-in short the glory of the West is that life is an open book,[1] while under Islam, life is a closed book, everything has been decided for you: God and the Holy Law set limits on the possible agenda of your life. — Ibn Warraq

I was only able to get over my past when I decided I was going to! As I've discovered, that's how everything starts. I decided to get out of bed this morning. I decided to get ready for work (D'oh! Another early morning). Everything I did today was because I made a decision. Although we can't set ourselves free, getting up and making a decision to move on from our past is a step in the right direction. We can't do God's part, and He won't do our part. He can't make that decision for you, because only you can. But once you have made that decision, He can help you with the rest. — Corallie Buchanan

God was happy without humans before they were made; he would have continued happy had he simply destroyed them after they had sinned; but as it is he has set his love upon particular sinners, and this means that, by his own free voluntary choice, he will not know perfect and unmixed happiness again till he has brought every one of them to heaven. He has in effect resolved that henceforth for all eternity his happiness shall be conditional upon ours. — J.I. Packer

That truth set me free, along with other truths like leaning daily on God's grace and realizing that God's children are never victims. Everything that touches their lives, he permits. The irony is, you can't imagine a more victimized person than Jesus. Yet when he died, he didn't say, "I am finished" but "It is finished." He did not play the victim, and thus he emerged the victor. Forget the self-pity. True, your supervisor may be trying to push you out of your job. Your marriage may be a fiery trial. You might be living below the poverty level. But victory is ours in Christ. His grace is sufficient. Know this truth and it will set you free. This day, Jesus, I can feel sorry for myself or victorious in you. Show me how to choose the latter. — Joni Eareckson Tada

Only God can set the soul in bondage free. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Oh that God would help me waken in you a single passion for a single great reality that would unleash you, and set you free from small dreams, and send you, for the glory of Christ, into all the spheres of secular life and to all the peoples of the earth. — John Piper

And they can appreciate, through personal experience, that the really decisive battleground of American freedom is in the hearts and minds of our own people ... The path we travel is narrow and long, beset with many dangers. Each day we must ask that Almighty God will set and keep His protecting hand over us so that we may pass on to those who come after us the heritage of a free people, secure in their God-given rights and in full control of a Government dedicated to the preservation of those rights ... — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dear God, Please remove from me All falsity and illusion, That I might be a shining example Of a person Set free from fear. Amen. — Marianne Williamson

To forgive another from the heart is an act of liberation. We set that person free from the negative bonds that exist between us. As long as we do not forgive we pull them with us, or worse, as a heavy load. The great temptation is to cling in anger to our enemies & then define ourselves as being offended & wounded by them. Forgiveness, therefore, liberates not only the other but also ourselves. It is the way to the freedom of the children of God. — Henri Nouwen

Sometimes God has to remind you that you're weak so that you can be set free from your "self-sufficiency." — Tullian Tchividjian

I am fully aware that the things I do are construed as absolute craziness. But in actuality, we are just having fun in God's presence. We enjoy the happy presence of God and people get free from religion, so they stop taking themselves so seriously. Freedom from pride is liberating and empowering. The Lord loves to mock religion through us, because religion grieves Him tremendously. What we are never doing is trying to make a formula out of these crazy antics. In fact, most of these antics are gloriously deriding religious formula! Our antics are so crazy in fact that you would have to be a complete nutjob to think smoking a baby Jesus doll is the latest tool to get you to a new level with God. These silly acts don't get us filled with the Spirit, nor are we trying to start a new denomination with this stuff. We do lots of fun, goofy things because we are already in the Spirit by His grace, and we've been set free from the performance-oriented version of Christianity. — John Crowder

How do I find joy in my homeschool journey?
The answer is quite simple. I accept lots of God's grace. Grace to make mistakes. Grace to take a nap when I am exhausted. Grace to not feel guilty. Without His abundant provision of grace, I would be depleted, discouraged, and dissatisfied. Instead, I place all my trust in His direction and I embrace my calling as a homeschool mom. His grace has set me free from worry, fear, doubt, and guilt and I am overflowing with joy. Praise God! — Tamara L. Chilver

They might ignore me immediately.
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free. — Sylvia Plath

When I got back to my cell, I said, 'God, I asked you to set me free, not kill me.' God spoke to me and said, 'Andrew, I have set you free from the inside out, I have given you life!' From that moment on I haven't stopped worshipping Him. I had never sung before, never led worship, until Jesus set me free. — Andrew Chan

My abortion was so long ago I didn't think I needed help. I hoped God had forgiven me but I hadn't realized I didn't forgive myself. After attending this safe, nurturing group I know that I am forgiven and set free. — Barbara

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of fotball, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.
That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.
I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love proved in the letting go. — Cecil Day-Lewis

God's grace set me free from fear. — Lailah Gifty Akita

God has smiled on me, He has set me free. For us to acknowledge that we have been set free from toxic dependency, from crippling obsession or guilt, that we have been graced with the ability finally to forgive someone, is just plain astonishing. — Anne Lamott

I've been in situations where forgiveness has been withheld from me. And I've come to understand it's their choice. But just because they choose to live in a prison of unforgiveness doesn't mean I have to sit in there with them. Another perspective comes from R.T. Kendall in his book, Total Forgiveness, "Forgiving yourself may bring about the breakthrough you have been looking for. It could set you free in ways you have never experienced before." The things we've been through, even if they are shameful or destructive, could very well be things God wants to use in our lives to help others. And if we're standing in the way of our forgiveness, healing, and freedom, how can God do His work in our lives? — Tracie Stier-Johnson

I know it's highly unusual for people to get this excited over books. But if you're a reader, you get me . I don't need movies. I don't need TV. But books I can't live without books. To
me, a book is better than any movie. All I need is a good book, my imagination, and I am set free. I'm in literature heaven. And thank God, this may be the only thing that keeps me sane while we're here. — Belle Aurora

Which was first, Matter or Force? If we think on this question, we shall find that we are unable to conceive of matter without force, or force without matter. When God created the elements of which the earth is composed, He created certain wondrous forces, which are set free and become evident when matter acts on matter. — William Crookes

The source of their confident certainty was simply God alone. God Himself. As long as they were in fellowship with Him, they could forever expect His blessings to just roll downhill and right into their lives. He was their righteousness, He was their innocence, He was their sense of identity, He was their dignity and honor. He was their peace. And He was their prosperity. He was the reason they felt no fear. So even though we're confined today to a much different time zone than the one Adam and Eve set their clocks to - back before the Fall struck thirteen and threw everything out of whack - the winning response to fear and anxiety remains completely one-dimensional. It's Him - not the favorable resolution of our problems. It's Him - not the removal of every worst-case scenario. It's Him - not an easy, breezy, adversity-free lifestyle. It's Him. It has always been and will always be Him. — Matt Chandler

The reason why we look so crazy as Christians is because we see a world that the rest don't see. We see a God-bathed world in which we are perfectly safe. So safe, so set free from fear that we can even love our enemies without thought of the consequences. — Skye Jethani

The path's been set ,
The way has been pointed out to me,
I need strength to walk, and make the first step,
I need the light to see, and wisdom to discern,
I need Evil and God,
The path's been set for me to follow,
The way has been pointed out to me,
I need courage, and hope,
Time to unleash the beast, and set the dragon free,
Time to rise and defy Death,
Time to defeat Satan, and destroy God,
Time for war and violence, time to love and kill,
Time to tame the demons of the mind,
Time to cut the angel's wings
Time to show your fangs and claws to the Devil,
I need courage, I need hope,
I need strength to slit the devil's throat
Give me Satan, Give me God,
Give me death, give me life,
The path is been set for me to follow — Quetzal

purpose was not to make us worthy of God's love, but to set us free to see that we already have it. And — Wayne Jacobsen

I think if you're convinced that you're evil, and that God has had to rescue you, then the best you can be is grateful. But nobody ever loves the person they have to be perpetually grateful to. That's just not the way it works in humanity. You need to be set free. You need to be loved just as you are so that you can become all that you can be. That's the direction we have to turn the Christian message; when we do, it becomes universal. — John Shelby Spong

The heart of a worshipper is a heart arrested and set free by the love of God. — Gangai Victor

In Jesus, God has put up a "Gone Fishing" sign on the religion shop. He has done the whole job in Jesus once and for all and simply invited us to believe it - to trust the bizarre, unprovable proposition that in him, every last person on earth is already home free without a single religious exertion: no fasting till your knees fold, no prayers you have to get right or else, no standing on your head with your right thumb in your left ear and reciting the correct creed - no nothing ... The entire show has been set to rights in the Mystery of Christ - even though nobody can see a single improvement. Yes, it's crazy. And yes, it's wild, and outrageous, and vulgar. And any God who would do such a thing is a God who has no taste. And worst of all, it doesn't sell worth beans. But it is good news - the only permanently good news there is - and therefore I find it absolutely captivating.
- as quoted in All Is Grace, by Brennan Manning. — Robert Farrar Capon

Primeval forests! virgin sod! That Saxon has not ravish'd yet, Lo! peak on peak in stairways set- In stepping stairs that reach to God! Here we are free as sea or wind, For here are set Time's snowy tents In everlasting battlements Against the march of Saxon mind. — Joaquin Miller

God is always waiting for us to come to Him, so we can be set free from anything that keeps us from becoming more like Him. To the children of Israel in bondage in Egypt, God said He saw their oppression, heard their cry, and knew their sorrows, so He came to deliver them (Exodus 3:7-8). Know that He will do the same for you. — Stormie O'martian

Once, long ago, Jesus had called her name, breaking through the darkness of her oppression to set her free from the seven demons that bound her. now He broke through the hopelessness of her grief and despair. Mary might not have recognized His face, but she could never forget the sound of His voice, not when He called her name.(From "I Have Seen The Lord!") — Sherri Gragg

Every human being has divinity encased within its spirit and it is the task of its creator as well as itself to set it free. No human being is an end product, every being still breathing is a creation still under creation. — Toni Sorenson

God is reaching out to us, wanting us to see we need him. But since he is God, we think he wants some song and dance from us - in other words, behavior modification. He actually just wants us. He longs to set us free. And yes, to accomplish all that, he wants us entirely. God is home to us. He is where we were made to be. He is what we were made for. We just forget all that while we are trying to be good and independent. — Jennie Allen

I fear that which I cannot control, and this existential anxiety is most intense when I reflect on my ambiguous relation to the mysterious presence of God, which I am unable to manipulate, and on my futile attempts to secure a place for my "self" in the world. Theological anthropology articulates the gospel of grace manifested in the history of Jesus Christ, by whose Spirit I am set free from the binding pain of my attempts to control my own destiny and in whose Spirit I rest peacefully in the dynamic presence of divine love. But it is not simply about me and God. — F. LeRon Shults

In the Christian tradition, for example, the only model for faith is Jesus of Nazareth. His proclamation, one observes in the New Testament, was not particularly religious: he spoke of God, certainly, but only in relation to ordinary human life with its quotidian struggle and suffering. Nor did he speak or preach in especially religious or secretarian terms; in fact, it maybe be said that Jesus came to set the world free from enslavement to and obsession with mere (humanly made) religion. "He went about doing good" is the biblical summary of his life and mission, and no words are more moving or provocative. — Donald Spoto

God deals only with truth and the truth will set you free, but it will hurt so badly first. Sobering up will be like walking toward my own crucifixion. — Glennon Doyle Melton

I had a friend in high school named Sally Newlyn who explained what had gone wrong with God's plan for the world. During one of her schizophrenic episodes, she told me that God had given mankind a finite number of souls. He set them free in the sky where they orbited silently until they were needed for the newly conceived. He intended for the souls to be reincarnated so that humanity would grow more generous and wise with each generation. But God had underestimated man's propensity to go forth and multiply, and so, on our planet today, millions of bodies were roaming the earth searching in the vain for a soul. — Kaylie Jones

Sometimes God will take you to a prison to set you free. — Sheila Walsh

My chains are gone
I've been set free
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, amazing grace! — Chris Tomlin

Wherever, in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches the fire of God's likeness, it is set into the growing walls, a living stone. — Phillips Brooks

Virtue does not consist in whether you face towards the East or the West; virtue means believing in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book and the prophets; the virtuous are those who, despite their love for it, give away their wealth to their relatives and to orphans and the very poor, and to travellers and those who ask [for charity], and to set slaves free, and who attend to their prayers and pay the alms, and who keep their pledges when they make them, and show patience in hardship and adversity, and in times of distress. Such are the true believers; and such are the God-fearing. — Anonymous

It is not possible that you could ever find yourself anywhere where God was not fully present, fully active, able and willing to set you free. — Emmet Fox

Once, long years ago, I thought I could set a canoe-load of my people free by breaking the bands at my wrists and killing the white man who held the weapon. I had the strength in my hands to do such a deed and I had the fire within, but I didn't do it."
"What held you back?"
Amos shook his head. "My hand was restrained and I'm glad that it was, for the years between have shown me that it does a man no good to be free until he knows how to live, how to walk in step with God. — Elizabeth Yates

The Fathers intent desire is that none would 'perish'. The promise God has given us is one of 'liberation'- Freedom. Being set free "from" captivity and reconciled "to" your Father. Intimacy with Jesus garners son-ship with Abba. As Jesus "demonstrated" that Son-ship of Grace he said, 'I only "say" and "do" what I hear the Father saying and doing'. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God by "Do'in the Stuff". The early church 'got' Jesus. John Wimber 're-got' Jesus and began proclaiming the Kingdom and demonstrating it as any loving son would of his Father. Now, we are no longer refuges but 'Bona Fide' citizens in good standing with our King and our new country. Where Love, Mercy, Grace; Peace 'rains' on us eternally here and now. 'The Already But Not Yet' (Ruis)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

DECEMBER 4 Use Your Authority Well Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you must be your slave - just as the Son of Man came not to be waited on but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many [the price paid to set them free]. MATTHEW 20:26- 28 God desires to restore us to our rightful position of authority in Christ. But first, we must learn to respect authority before we are fit to be in authority. We all have authorities to whom God expects us to submit. Our government, our law officers, and even our merchants have the right to set rules for us to follow. If we are not submitting to God's appointed authority, it will soon be revealed. Keep a submissive attitude in your heart, and enjoy the authority you have been given to spend time in God's presence today. — Joyce Meyer

... of a child dying an agonizing death from diphtheria, of a young mother ravaged by cancer, of tens of thousands of Asians swallowed in an instant by the sea, of millions murdered in death camps and gulags and forced famines ... Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred ... As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy. It is ... a faith that ... has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. — David Bentley Hart

Break away from every yoke of bondage in Jesus Name. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Peace is not just about the absence of conflict; it's also about the presence of justice. Martin Luther King Jr. even distinguished between "the devil's peace" and God's true peace. A counterfeit peace exists when people are pacified or distracted or so beat up and tired of fighting that all seems calm. But true peace does not exist until there is justice, restoration, forgiveness. Peacemaking doesn't mean passivity. It is the act of interrupting injustice without mirroring injustice, the act of disarming evil without destroying the evildoer, the act of finding a third way that is neither fight nor flight but the careful, arduous pursuit of reconciliation and justice. It is about a revolution of love that is big enough to set both the oppressed and the oppressors free. — Shane Claiborne

Ways that God's army will not be like a human army: 1) It will fight to give life, not take it. 2) It will fight to free people, not conquer them. 3) Its victory is not the destruction of those controlled by the enemy, but rather the tearing down of strongholds that are keeping them in bondage so as to set them free. 4) Its weapons are not carnal, but spiritual. 5) The battles, objectives, strategies, and tactics will be spiritual, not physical. The above is corroborated in a number of Scriptures, but we will review just a few, beginning with II Corinthians 10:3-6: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled (NKJV). — Rick Joyner

In this great fiat of the little girl Mary, the strength and foundation of our life of contemplation is grounded, for it means absolute trust in God, trust which will not set us free from suffering but will set us free from anxiety, hesitation, and above all from the fear of suffering. Trust which makes us willing to be what God wants us to be, however great or however little that may prove. Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love. — Caryll Houselander

But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret. For in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armor, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we love. For the good of mankind, and for the honor and glory of God. — Bram Stoker

We know when we are following our vocation when our soul is set free from preoccupation with itself and is able to seek God and even to find Him, even though it may not appear to find Him. Gratitude and confidence and freedom from ourselves: these are signs that we have found our vocation and are living up to it even though everything else may seem to have gone wrong. They give us peace in any suffering. They teach us to laugh at despair. And we may have to. — Thomas Merton

Can you feel the rush? Listen quietly. It's there. It's the sound of a life and spirit being set free. God, help me set myself free from ridiculous and unnecessary expectations. — Melody Beattie

Most of the church landscape in my lifetime has been heavily invested in trying to do something for Jerry or Sherri or some other icon of unchurchness. The problem is that they have been only about themselves from the moment they could wail for their mothers, and the decision to give them at church what they can find in any self-help book appears now as a choice to abandon the One in whose honor the church gathers. What they need is to be set free from themselves with finality and to be lost in the awesome wonder of the manifest presence of God. It was never God's desire that He would sit on the sideline and watch us frantically devise impressive ways to reach people or simply hold the line on orthodoxy as though faithfulness can exist in a vacuum apart from fruitfulness. God is the Matter of first importance! Can you say that about your current weekly encounter with church? — James MacDonald

We've schemed and fought and loved until we are so entangled in hearts and minds that there is no way to set us free. God help us both, Harry, for we will never be rid of each other. Not even death will do that. — Sharon Kay Penman

To live a spiritual life does not mean that we must leave our families, give up our jobs, or change our ways of working; it does not mean that we have to withdraw from social or political activities, or lose interest in literature and art; it does not require severe forms of asceticism or long hours of prayer. Changes such as these may in fact grow out of our spiritual life, and for some people radical decisions may be necessary. But the spiritual life can be lived in as many ways as there are people. What is new is that we have moved from the many things to the kingdom of God. What is new is that we are set free from the compulsions of our world and have set our hearts on the only necessary thing. What is new is that we no longer experience the many things, people, and events as endless causes for worry, but begin to experience them as the rich variety of ways in which God makes his presence known to us. — Henri J.M. Nouwen

Life is a crusade in the service of God. Whether we wished to or not, we set out as crusaders to free - not the Holy Sepulcher - but that God buried in matter and in our souls. — Nikos Kazantzakis

The only excuse for even a single ounce of victory in my life is the supernatural delivering power of Jesus Christ. I was in the clutches of a real, live devil, living in a perpetual cycle of defeat. Only a miracle-working God could have set me free, then dared to use me. You may remark, "That's not a real miracle!" but Scripture suggests that no greater work exists. The most profound miracles of God will always be those within the hearts and souls of people. Moving a mountain is nothing compared to changing a selfish, destructive human heart into something He can use. — Beth Moore

When we approach fundraising in a spirit of gratitude, our confidence in our mission does not depend on how the person we are with responds to our request! We are free to remain secure in God's love with our hearts set joyfully on the kingdom. — Henri Nouwen

According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written, not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stage-managers, who had since made a great mess of it. — G.K. Chesterton

But being honest in my work and life has kind of set me free. I'm so much more than my pain. Oh my god, I sound like my therapist! Call her, she can vouch that I'm doing great. — Jessie Kahnweiler

Mr. Ron, I was captive in the devil's prison. That was easy for Miss Debbie to see. But I got to tell you: Many folks had seen me behind the bars in that prison for more than thirty years, and they just walked on by. Kept their keys in their pocket and left me locked up. Now I ain't tryin to run them other folks down, 'cause I was not a nice fella-dangerous-and prob'ly just as happy to stay in prison. But Miss Debbie was different--she seen me behind them bars and reached way down in her pocket and pulled out the keys God gave her and used one to unlock the prison door and set me free. — Denver Moore

CHAPTER THREE SIN USHERS MAN TO DEATH But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. -Romans 6:22-23 As Lust got older, Grandpa Earth would yield his treasures to her; everything precious that he stored, he would render to his firstborn grandchild. Lust became very wealthy incomparable to every other living being including her dad. She employed many of her siblings, and advised them of how to make great success as her employees. Despite her favour with her granddad, she did not receive the same preferential treatment from Grandma Sun. — Stephen Domena

I learned to put my trust in God and to see Him as my strength. Long ago I set my mind to be a free person and not to give in to fear. I always felt that it was my right to defend myself if I could. I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. - Rosa Parks — Rosa Parks