As we journey through life, we are often shackled by metaphorical chains that hold us back, tie us down, or slow our progress.
However, we find in God’s abundant love and grace the hope that can free us.
So raise your hands high, liberated to receive the many gifts God has for you.
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Galatians 5:13-14
Christ has freed us to love:
Love with all our hearts,
Love with all our might.
Love our friends and families;
Love even our enemies.
Christ has freed us to express love.
For the stranger we do not know,
Love from our hearts must always flow.
For the oppressed and the poor,
Love from our hearts must always flow.
Christ has freed us to love;
And love we must, because we are free.
Christ’s love has freed us, freed us from our chains.
James Blay
Lord I praise you because you have freed me from my chains, freed me to love unconditionally all those I encounter. Amen.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18