Quotes about Freedom

Not even God, with all his power, can force a human being to love.

Although Jesus' prayers do not offer a foolproof formula, they do give clues as to how God works — and does not work — on this planet. Especially when trouble strikes, we want God to intervene more decisively, but Jesus' prayers underscore God's style of restraint out of respect for human freedom.

Jesus' prayers for Peter — and perhaps for Judas as well — express God's unfathomable respect for human freedom.

King clung to nonviolence because he profoundly believed that only a movement based on love could keep the oppressed from becoming a mirror image of their oppressors. He wanted to change the hearts of the white people, yes, but in a way that did not in the process harden the hearts of the blacks he was leading toward freedom. Nonviolence, he believed, 'will save the Negro from seeking to substitute one tyranny for another.

Lewis Smedes points out, "The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness. . . . When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.

Democracy requires us to recognize others' rights even when we fundamentally disagree with them.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

Let it be said by our children's children thta when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried frth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Living in freedom means learning how to walk again—learning how to walk God's way for a change—because, listen, you can be 100 percent saved and still spend the majority of your time in Egypt. Unbelievers aren't the only ones who contribute to Egypt's overcrowding.

But a free woman possesses the God-given ability to know when He is truly asking her to do something—as well as the God-given ability to know when He's not. Then she has the God-given discernment to know her limits and the authority to know when she needs "to cease, to stop, to pause"—accepting the gentle yoke of Jesus instead of the tyrannical yoke of slavery. "For My yoke is easy," He said, "and My burden is light" (Matt. 11:30).

Restricting yourself in the truth of God's word actually releases you into a freedom you would not otherwise have.

It was for freedom that Christ set us free" (Gal. 5:1).