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The Evangelist Luke tells us that “as the time approached when he was to be taken from this world,” Jesus “firmly resolved to proceed toward Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51).
In the phrase “firmly resolved,” we can glimpse Christ’s freedom. Indeed, he knows that in Jerusalem, death on a cross awaits him, but in obedience to the Father’s will, he offers himself for love. It is in his very obedience to the Father that Jesus achieves his own freedom as a conscious decision motivated by love.
Who is freer than the One who is the Almighty? He did not, however, live his freedom as an arbitrary power or as domination. He lived it as a service. In this way he “filled” freedom with content, which would otherwise have remained an “empty” possibility of doing or not doing something.
Like human life itself, freedom draws its meaning from love. Indeed, who is the freest? Someone who selfishly keeps all possibilities open for fear of losing them, or someone who expends…
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This is precisely the message that I did not want to recognize, but through the grace of God and, no doubt many prayers from Heaven and Earth, I have begun to cling to as a great comfort and something unimaginably appealing now. What made me so unhappy for so long in my life? Not getting my own way, in one way or another. And my way is the way of the world, and of flesh, and it is a selfish way. But now that I understand that I can conform my will to the will of God, (as closely as I am able to, considering I must still fight my selfishness), and God will help me by grace, I am realizing that nothing outwardly may have changed. I still have to work every day, and do housework, homework, and all the rest, but that if I offer it all to God and give it my best effort, I am happy. And free!!!!